Literary Background of the African Literature

The most notable literary selections are those that capture the
life and struggle of the African people. There have been
significant struggles that could have been left untouched, but
writers choose to face courageous task of answering the call of
pen, and begin the process of social healing through literature.
Perhaps, it is this brilliant characteristic of African literature that
enables it to shine and fulfill one universal function of literature.
The literary tradition of Africa became richer than ever
as it gained artistic and sophisticated expression in
different languages. Traditional languages became
vehicles of cultural thoughts. Poetry, drama, novel, and
short story flourished as the literary genres. The people’s
struggle to cope with – or oppose – the changing
atmosphere of their homelands was dramatically recorder
in what is known as African literature.
  NEGRITUDE
“A sudden grasp of racial identity and of cultural values and an
awareness of the wide discrepancies which existed between the promise
of the French system of assimilation and the reality.”
The movement's founders looked to Africa to rediscover and rehabilitate
the African values that had been erased by French cultural superiority.
Negritude writers wrote poetry in French in which they presented African
traditions and cultures as antithetical, but equal, to European culture.The
journal, according to its founder, was an endeavor "to help define
African originality and to hasten its introduction into the modern world.”
 ORAL LITERATURE
• Oral literature, also called as “orature,” have flourished
in Africa for many centuries and take a variety of forms
including folk tales, myths, epics, funeral dirges, praise
poems, and proverbs.
 1. MYTHS
• Myths usually explain the interrelationships of all things
that exist, and provide for the group and its members a
necessary sense of their place in relation to their
environment and the forces that order events on earth.
 2. EPICS
• Epics are elaborate literary forms, usually performed
only by experts on special occasions. They often
recount the heroic adventures of ancestors.
3. FUNERAL DIRGES

• Dirges, chanted during funeral ceremonies, lament

the departed, praise his/her memory, and ask for
his/her protection.
 4. PRAISE POEMS
• Praise poems are epithets called out in reference to an object (a person,
a town, an animal, a disease, and so on) in celebration of its
outstanding qualities and achievements.
• Praise poems have a variety of applications and functions. Professional
groups often create poems exclusive to them. Prominent chiefs might
appoint a professional performer to compile their praise poems and
perform them on special occasions. Professional performers of praise
poems might also travel from place to place and perform for families or
individuals for alms or a small fee.
5. PROVERBS
• Proverbs are short, witty or ironic statements, metaphorical in its
formulation which aim to communicate a response to a particular
situation, to offer advice, or to be persuasive.
• It is often employed as a rhetorical device, presenting its speaker
as the holder of cultural knowledge or authority. Yet, as much as
the proverb looks back to an African culture as its origin and
source of authority, it creates that African culture each time it is
spoken and used to make sense of immediate problems and
occasions.
• WRITTEN LITERATURE

- Written literature includes novels, plays,

poems, hymns, and tales.
 21st CENTURY
CANONICAL
AFRICAN WRITERS
1. Michael Onsando (Kenya)
Michael is one of those rare writers
whose work– be it poetry, politics,
fiction or non-fiction—hits a standard of
perfection which many can only dream
of.
The use of poetry to express the
realities of the world around us is
almost as old as the tradition of poetry
itself, and it is in this that Onsando really
excels. There is no topic he does not
touch– from political oppression to
extra-judicial killings to the words and
acts of Kenyan politicians.
 STILL (Michael Onsando)

‘And then a word

and then a cut
and then another.
And then pain.
And display of pain.
Still, it’s okay. It’s a big black Kenyan man.
A big black Kenyan man.
And the big black Kenyan man is…
invincible’
2. Ben Okri OBE
- is a Nigerian poet and novelist.
Okri is considered one of the
foremost African authors in the post-
modern and post-colonial traditions,
and has been compared favourably to
authors such as Salman Rushdie and
Gabriel García Márquez.
 An African Elegy (Ben Okri OBE)

We are the miracles that God made

To taste the bitter fruit of Time.
We are precious.
And one day our suffering
Will turn into the wonders of the earth.

There are things that burn me now

Which turn golden when I am happy.
Do you see the mystery of our pain?
That we bear poverty
And are able to sing and dream sweet things

And that we never curse the air when it is warm

Or the fruit when it tastes so good
Or the lights that bounce gently on the waters?
We bless things even in our pain.
We bless them in silence.
4. Ijeoma Umebinyuo
Ijeoma Umebinyuo is a Nigerian author. She was
born in Lagos, Nigeria. She is the author of
Questions for Ada, her first published collection of
prose poems and poems. Her writings have been
translated to Portuguese, Turkish, Spanish, Russian
and French.
In 2016, Ijeoma Umebinyuo was named one of the
top ten contemporary poets from sub-sharan Africa
by wrtivism.org.
She published her first collection of poems titled
Questions for Ada in August of 2015. Writing of
her personal story,the tribulations of being a
woman, being foreign and being loved.
 Questions For Ada
“So, here you are “Stay away
too foreign for home from men who peel the skin
too foreign for here. of other women, forcing you
Never enough for both.” to
― Ijeoma Umebinyuo, wear them.”
― Ijeoma Umebinyuo,
“1. You must let the pain visit. “America, while you were
asleep another woman
2. You must allow it teach you mourned her dead black
3. You must not allow it overstay. lover’s bullet-ridden body, as
(Three routes to healing)” his baby cried for her father’s
life.”
― Ijeoma Umebinyuo,
― Ijeoma Umebinyuo,
5. Upile Chisala
Born in 1994 and raised in Zomba, Malawi,
writer Upile Chisala hopes to tell stories from
the margins and, through her work, to help
others and herself come to terms with pasts,
celebrate presents, and confidently dream
beautiful futures.
Upile Chisala comes a collection of poetry
and style exploring the self, joy, blackness,
gender, matters of the heart, spirituality, the
experience of Migration, and above all, how
we survive.
Upile Chisala Short Poems
 DYAD ACTIVITY: 1 Whole
Instruction:
Basing from our discussion on the 21st century African Literature,
Create your own Adaptation of a poem with a title, “STRUGGLE”.
 4 stanzas
 4 lines per stanza
 Use rhyming words and figurative languages.
Criteria:
Creativity -5 points
Relation to the theme - 10 points
Originality - 5 points
TOTAL -20 points