ROM afrikannames.comAFRICAN WORDS FOR MOTHER”A mother cannot die.” -Democratic Republic of the CONGOEnjoy this list of African names.AKA (AH-kah). Mother. Nigeria (Eleme) FEKA (EH-kah). Mother earth. West Africa FINE -(EE-neh). Mother. Nigeria (Ishan) FIYA – YORUBA- MOTHERJIBOO (jee-boh). New mother. Gambia (Mandinka) FMAMAWA (MAHM-wah). Small mother. Liberia FMANYI (mahn-yee). The mother of twins. Cameroon (Mungaka) FMASALA (mah-SAH-lah). The great mother. Sudan FNAHWALLA (nah-WAHL-lah). The mother of the family. Cameroon (Mubako) FNANA (NAH-nah). Mother of the earth. Ghana FNANJAMBA (nahn-JAHM-bah). Mother of twins. Angola (Ovimbundu)NINA (NEE-nah). Mother. East Africa (Kiswahili) FNNENMA (n-NEHN-mah). Mother of beauty. Nigeria (Igbo) FNNEORA (n-neh-OH-rah). Mother loved by all. Nigeria (Igbo) FNOBANTU (noh-BAHN-too). Mother of nations. Azania (Xhosa) FNOBUNTU (noh-BOON-too). Mother of humanity. Azania (Xhosa) FNOLUNDI (noh-LOON-dee). Mother of horizons. Azania (Xhosa) FNOMALI (NOH-MAH-lee). Mother of riches. Azania (Xhosa) FNOMANDE noh-MOHN-deh). Mother of patience. Azania (Xhosa) FNOMPI (nohm-PEE). Mother of war. Azania (Xhosa) FNOMSA (NOHM-sah). Mother of kindness. Azania (Xhosa) FNONDYEBO (non-dyeh-boh). Mother of plenty. Azania (Xhosa) FNOZIZWE (noh-ZEEZ-weh). Mother of nations. Azania (Nguni)NOZUKO (noh-ZOO-koh). Mother of glory. Azania (Xhosa) FUMAYMA (o-MAH-ee-mah). Little mother. North Africa (Arabic) FUMI (OO-mee). My mother. Kiswahili FUMM (oom). Mother. North Africa (Arabic) FYENYO (yehn-yoh). Mother is rejoicing. Nigeria (Yoruba) FYEYO (yeh-YOH). Mother. Tanzania FYETUNDE (yeh-TOON-deh). The mother comes back. Nigeria (Yoruba) FYINGI (YEEN-gee). My beloved mother. NigeriaSent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN”Mama”(and Papa) were introduced into Yoruba language early by Yorubas who wanted to show they were educated, according Ojogbon Akinwunmi Isola.. So long ago that many think it is a Yoruba word! Now it has replaced -IYA almost completely! SO we must start using IYA instead and correct those who use it because word by word Yoruba is being replaced by english words killing the Yoruba Language! So do your part from today! We can and will SAVE Yoruba! Olodumare ase!
All Nigerian/AFRICAN Languages must learn from the mistake of educated Yorubas! DO NOT mix your Language! Reclaim your word for mother first for it is the most important word in any language!
“MAMA” must be replaced with the African word in your Language?
Archive for the ‘BLACK WRITERS’ Category
>BLACK SKINNED WOMEN:QUEEN MOTHERS OF THE BLACK RACE AND ALL BEAUTY!- BY SISTER AKILIMALI FUNUA OLADE
January 10, 2011>FROM blacknationalistswriters.blogspot.com
Monday, January 10, 2011
BLACK SKINNED WOMEN:QUEEN MOTHERS OF THE BLACK RACE AND ALL BEAUTY!- BY SISTER AKILIMALI FUNUA OLADE
BLACK-SKINNED WOMEN: QUEEN MOTHERS OF THE BLACK RACE AND ALL BEAUTY!
Why do I sing Praises of your Beautiful, Black, ebony,velvet skin,”Blacker than the sky at midnight”{1},your full mushroomed mouth, your beautiful broad nose, your generous “Congo hips” {2}and full-flowered backside? Because for too long many of the Black Race have abused, dishonored you, degraded and denied you your crown, Queen of Queens,Queen Mother of the Black Race, Black Beauty Supreme! From you all the beauty of the Black Race springs forth.In fact all the world’s beauty springs from you,Mother of all beauty of all the races of the world! Your Black midnight,licorice,dark black chocolate,beauty, is Blackness concentrated in your beautiful “Black-blueberry”{3} face!
First in the order of creation is always given respect by Afrikan tradition. The 1st wife, the 1st elder, the 1st kingdom, the 1st original inhabitants, of the earth-all are considered with honor. So it should be with Black Beauty-our darkest -skinned Sisters are the 1st Mothers of the Universe-Black as a color came before all the many tones of brown,red,yellow and white. But for too long our Dark-skinned Queens have not been given the respect and place of honor they deserve. IN FACT THE WHITE BOY HAS INTIATED the cycle of reversing the true order of things by turning upside down the pyramid of Beauty, and placing white-light on top and relegating the most beautiful Black-skinned Beauties to rock bottom!
So Black people have been taught well how to deny our most
beautiful one her crown, taught how to reject our Blackest, most Afrikan features, full lips and nose and mouth and woollest hair, for the weaker characteristics of the white race. Shame on Black people! When will we wake up to this Black Beauty concentrated, from whence all our lesser beauty comes. When will we give the crown of crowns,the throne of thrones, to the Blackest Queen of Queens?
Most of us who suffer from”mulatto-mentality” and “yellow fever”, as Fela, our great Nigerian Musician calls it, will go on and on about what about us lighter queens-aren’t we/they beautiful too, yet you/we should be aware that such queens have gotten all the play in the past and that even in Black Egypt one of the reasons for its downfall was the allowing the lighter ones of the race, to place themselves above the rest of us in the name of lightness and pride of light-closer/to/whiteness.
Sister Yeye Akilimali Funua Olade
1981,Lagos,Nigeria
BLACK NOTES: Let me give tribute to Brother Damu,House of Umoja(San Francisco) for{1}
{2}Brother O.O. Gabugan in the poem “Black Queen For a Day”,{3}Sister Sonia Sanchez in her poem “,Queens of the Universe”,for the quoted words used in the first part of this article.
>TONY MARINHO-AFRICAN WRITER/ACTIVIST!-HIS POEM-"THE NEW AFRICAN TALKING DRUM"
August 4, 2010>
from africanwriter.com
The New African Talking Drum – A Poem by Tony Marinho
By Tony Marinho Published July 11, 2010
The dreaded new African talking drum
Drums damaging every eardrum
Day, night, its message, a bush fire,
Consuming village to presidential villa
It talks in all 340 tribal tongues
Drumming into dreams, destroying sleep and lungs.
But no one dances in the noisy polluting heat
Of the new African talking drum beat
President to prostitute
Restaurant to research institute
Police to petrol station
Right across the darkened nation
It drums a dirge, mourning
From dusk to dawning,
www – the world wide waking,
As power dies again, again, and again.
Nigeria requires a 100,000Mw revolution in energy
Making every city an electri-City.
To be truly ‘I fine pass my neighbour’
Silence the new African talking drum – the generator.
– Tony Marinho
‘I fine pass my neighbour’ is colloquial for a small family size generator
The many sided coin and other stories
WEBSITE- tonymarinho.com
>BLACK POETS (IN THE AFRICAN DIASPORA)-TO BE CONSTANTLY UPDATED AND NOT IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER YET
May 26, 2010>
AMIRI BARAKA-MY CHOICE FOR THE GREATEST BLACK POET IN THE AFRICAN DIASPORA!)
PHYLLIS WHEATLY (1753-1784)-thought to be the first Black poet in the U.S.A.
LANGSTON HUGHES
SONIA SANCHEZ( MY MENTOR!)
BLACK POETS(IN THE AFRICAN DIASPORA)
SANCHEZ,SONIA
GIOVANNI,NIKKI
ROGERS,CAROLYN
OLADE,YEYE AKILIMALI FUNUA
DUNBAR,PAUL LAWRENCE
HUGHES,LANGSTON
BROOKS,GWENDOLYN
BARAKA,AMIRI
MADHUBUTI,HAKI
CULLEN,COURTEE
JOHNSON,JAMES WELDON
YOUNG,AL
HARPER,MICHAEL S.
JORDAN,JUNE
GARVEY,MARCUS
THE LAST POETS
WALCOTT,DEREK
FAUSET,JESSIE REDMON
TROUPE,QUINCY
WALKER,ALICE
SPENSER,ANNE
GLIMKE,ANGELINA W.
HARPER,TRANCIS E.W.
PHYLLIS WHEATLEY (1753-1784)-thought to be the first Black poet in the U.S.A.
MADGETT,NAOMI LONG
CLIFTON,LUCILLE
RANDALL,DUDLEY
KOMANYAKAA,YUSEF
DOVE,RITA
BONTEMPTS,ARNA
MCKAY,CLAUDE
>A TRIBUTE TO A GREAT NIGERIAN/AFRICAN-CHIEF N.O. IDOWU BY BAYO ADEBOWALE,AFRICAN WRITER-FROM THE GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER,APRIL 28,2010
May 23, 2010>
FROM THE GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER
The N.O. Idowu that I know The beauty of Africa
Is slain upon the high places.
How are the mighty fallen!
SIR: The Erin-wo epitaph clearly sums up people’s general opinion of the eventful life and times of Chief (Dr) Nathaniel Olabiyi Idowu (OFR), the Mayeloye and the Okanlomo of Ibadan land. Chief Idowu led a crowded life of progress and specular achievements in virtually all fields of human endeavour Ð as a community leader, philanthropist, pillar of sports, business tycoon, devout Christian, committed family man and a complete Omoluwabi.
Steadfast, diligent, disciplined, intelligent, honest, firm and forthright, N.O. all though, kept his head while others were losing theirs, in the face of challenges and vicissitudes of life. He was adored by his admirers and venerated even by his detractors, over whom he perched mightily like an eagle bird on the giant Baobab tree. He was in perfect accord with friends and at peace and harmony with all who dug holes round him.
Chief Nathaniel Olabiyi Idowu had no space in his tender heart to harbour malice, rancour and recriminations. His heart was a level-ground for positive thinking and record-breaking tendencies. No nooks, no crannies. Several times he had summoned us in African Heritage Research Library and Cultural Centre (AHRLC) to Lagos, to discuss confidential matters which touched his heart intimately, and these were matters concerning the progress and development of Eniosa, Adeyipo, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria and Africa. At such meetings, N. O. would bubble with hope, optimism and the commitment of a true messiah, on a rescue mission to improve the lot of his people. A great lover of the rural communityÉ When we took the news to him about Chief Afe Babalola’s unprecedented act of philantropism to AHRLC at Adeyipo village, he grabbed his phone and poured encomiums on the legal luminary telling him, “You have done what Napoleon would not do, Afe, turning back the Duke of Wellington. May Almighty God continue to enrich your purse and bless you abundantly as you put smiles on the faces of my people. Congratulations.”
On Saturday, September 24, 2005, during the official commissioning of AHRLC, Chief N. O. Idowu risked his health to grace the occasion. That day, he met with seven thousand jubilating community people of Olorunda Abaa, Igbo-Elerin and Igbo-Oloyin waiting impatiently to welcome their mentor and leader with traditional dundun and sekere music. Fortified by a sudden gift of good health and strength from above, N.O came that day to Adeyipo smiling, singing and dancing (in company of late Archdeacon Emmanuel Alayande and Chief Mrs. C.A. Idowu, his amiable wife, in front of a vociferous community audience who bestowed on him honour and recognition, never before witnessed in Lagelu Local Government Council of Ibadan, Oyo State. Together with Chief N. O. Idowu (our beloved Grand Patron) we formulated a universal caption for the task ahead of us in AHRLC, it is that: We have great works to do,
We have been called upon to build a new Africa
And a new Black World.
The N.O. Idowu that I know was a patriotic and worthy son of Africa. A man who stretched himself to ensure relief and comfort for the poor and the needy. A man who put others first and himself last; who kept sleepless nights to secure solutions to the problems of the society. A great man who left his footmarks boldly in the sands of time.
Chief (Dr.) Nathaniel Olabiyi Idowu (OFR) can never die, in the hearts of all of us who love him at home and abroad. He will forever be aliveÉ so, Death be not proud! Because those whom thou thinketh thou slayest, Dieth not, Poor Death!
Bayo Adebowale.
Adeyipo Village, Ibadan
>BAYO ADEBOWALE-A GREAT AFRICAN WRITER-A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
May 23, 2010>
from africanliterature.wordpress.com BAYO ADEBOWALE,EXTREME RIGHT,WITH OLOYE AFE BABALOLA ATI IYAAFIN YEYE AKILIMALI FUNUA OLADE (ABOVE)
BAYO ADEBOWALE:BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
By Yeye Akilimali Funua Olade
Bayo Adebowale, poet,novelist,short story writer,critic, teacher and librarian,was born in Adeyipo Village, Lagelu Local Government Area of Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria, on 6th June, 1944,to a peasant farmer and traditional drummer, Alagba Ayanlade Oladipupo Akangbe Adebowale. His mother, Madam Abigael Ayannihun Atunwa Adebowale is a traditional rara chanter and dancer,who hails from the neighbouring Apon Onilu Village,Ibadan, Oyo State.
Bayo Adebowale attended St. Andrew’s Kindergarten School at Kufi I Village, and St. Andrew’s Senior Primary School, Bamgbola, Igbo-Elerin District of Ibadan, where he obtained his Grade A Primary School Leaving Certificate in December, 1955. Thereafter, he was admitted to the Local Authjority Secondary Modern School, Aperin, Ibadan, between 1956 and 1958. In 1959,he became a pupil teacher at St. Mathias Primary School, Busogboro,Oluyole Local Government Area, Ibadan. The need to be trained as a teacher took him to Ilesa where he was admitted to St Peter’s Grade III Teacher College between 1960 and 1961. He was headmaster of St. Michael’s Primary School,Eko-Ajala,near Ikirun, Osun State, from January 1962 to December 1964. He was transferred to head another school in 1965-St. Andrew’s Primary School, Ilawe,three miles from Ifon, Osun State.
In 1966, the year of Nigeria’s military coup,Bayo Adebowale gained admission to Baptist College, Ede for his Higher Elementary Grade II Teacher Training Programme, which he finished in 1967 with Merit in ten subjects, including English Language, English Literature and Music. At Baptist College, Ede, Adebowale’s creativity boomed. He was a College House Prefect, the Secretary Literary and Debating Society,and the Editor of the College magazine,The Echo . He was a voracious reader of English and African novels;an ardent reader of the works of great writers like Gerald Durrel,Rider H.Haggard,Jane Austen, Daniel Defoe,John Buchan,R.L. Stevenson,Alexandre Dumas, Charles Dickens,Cyprian Ekwensi, Chinua Achebe, Elechi Amadi, Alan Paton, Peter Abrahams and Amos Tutuola. Bayo Adebowale’s creative ebullience was kept alive as a Higher Elementary (H.E.) teacher at Baptist School, Afolabi Apasan (near Araomi Akanran)Ibadan,between d1968 and 1970 and also at Ibadan City Council Primary School, Agugu, between 1970 and 1971.
In October,1971,he was admitted to read English at the Universtiy of Ibadan, having passed his General Certificate of Education(GCE) at both the Ordinary and the Advanced levels, between 1968 and 1971. He graduated Bachelor of Arts (Hon.) English in 1974 and had his National Youth Service Corps at St. Augustine’s Teachers’ College, Lafia, Benue-Plateau State, Northern Nigeria, from July 1974 to July 1975.
Bayo Adebowale was employed as an Education Officer (English) by the Western State Public Service Commission Between August, 1975 and August 1979 when he was posted to the Government Trade Centre at Oyo as an English Instructor. But in-between, Adebowale was given admission to the University of Ibadan for his Post Graduate Diploma in Applied English Linguistics (1976) and his Master of Arts Degree in English, which he successfully completed idn December 1978. His higher educational status qualified him for employment at the Oyo State College of Education,Ilesa,where he was appointed a Lecturer I in English in September 1979. He was posted back to St. Anderew’s College(then a Campus of OYSCE Ilesa) to head the School of Arts as the Deputy Dean,in 1981. He became athe Acting Dean of the School of Arts in Oyo State College of Education,Ila-Orangun in 1987. After the creation of Osun State(out of Oyo State) in 1991,Bayo Adebowale returned to his State of origin, with other officers of Oyo State indigenes working at OYSCE Ila-Orangun and was redeployed to The Polytechnic,Ibadan where he,at various times, as a Senior Principal Lecturer,was a Head of Department, and Acting Dean, and the Deputy Rector of the Institution between 1999 and 2003. Bayo Adebowale completed his Doctor of Philosophy Programmed in Literature in English at the University of Ilorin in May,1997.
To date, Bayo Adebowale has published over one hundred short stories in magazines, journals and papers in Nigeria and abroad.He admires a lot the works of distinguished writers, in the short story genre, like Edgar Allan Poe, Guy de Maupassant, Ernest Hemingway, Somerset Maugham, Toni Morrison, Doris Lessing, O. Henry,Jack London, Stephen Crane, Judith Wright, Agnus Wilson, Chinua Achebe,Eyprian Ekwensi, Ama Ata Aidoo, Ngugi Wa Thiong’o,Ben Okri, A.G.S. Momodu, Rasheed Gbadamosi,Lekan Oyejide, Nadine Gordimer, Lekan Oyegoke and Danbudzo Marechera.
In 1972,Adebowale’s short story,”The River Goddess” won the Western State Festival of Arts Literary Competition, in Ibadan, Nigeria and in 2002,he edited a collection of new Nigerian short stories-Talent-involving the words of fifteen Nigerian writers,including those of Femi Osofisan, Wale Okediran, Akeem Lasisi,Lekan Oyegode, Yeye Akilimali Funua Olade,and Amos Tutuola. Adebowale’s short stories had appeared in important Anthologies like Frontiers:Nigerian Short Stories (1992)d;A Passage to Modern Cicero (2003) and Horizon Journal,University of Ibadan (1975). Adebowale’s short stories are collected in book form in Iron Hand,Girl About Town; and Book Me Down. His collection A New Life was published in 2006 by Bounty Press,Ibadan.
Over ninety per cent of Bayo Adebowale’s short stories have rural setting, and deal with local community people in Nigerian villages and hamlets. A common trend of culture runs through them, stretching into his poetry and his three full-length novels.
For Adebowale the so-called modern society has nothing to offer to communal African village life “except chaos, corruption and other manifestations of of western narcissim”. Africa,for Adebowale,is a passion. “The contemorarisation of the mystic of the African essence is an addiction”.
Bayo Adebowale exhaustively examines the theme of culture in his poetry. Village Harvest,his first book of poetry,bears testimony to this. All the fifty-eight poems in the collection discuss sceneries,seasons,people,places, experiences,events and beliefs of the rural community people. This same trend is discernible in his second book of poetry,A Night of Incantations; where Yoruba traditional incantations are broken into three broad categories, viz: Malevolent Incantations;Benevolent Incantations and Propitiatory Incantations. In 1992,Bayo Adebowale’s poem, “Perdition” won the Africa Prize in the Index on Censorship International Poetry Competition in London. Quite a good number of his poems have been anthologized in Poetry for Africa 2(United Kingdom),Index on Censorship Journal (United Kingdom),African Literature Association Bulletin(Canada);Poetry Drum (Nigeria) and Crab Orchard Review(United States of America).Adebowale’s latest collection of poems, African Melody (2008) gives a realistic literary repositioning of the African Continent and has been acknowledged as”deeply reseached and a compotently crafted work of art”.
Today, Bayo Adebowale is most well-known as a novelist. His first novel,The Virgin, has been adapted into two home videos under the titles of “The White Hankerchief” and later as a thirteen week National Television Serial under yet another tile- “The Narrow Path” -all by the Main Frame Film Organization of Lagos under the directorate of the ace Nigerian cinematographer-Tunde Kelani. Adebowale’s second novel,Out of His Mind has several tiimes also been adapted for the stage. Both novels have been used by researchers as final-year Long Essay Projects in Colleges of Education, and for the Bachelor of Artrs degree final-year research and for Master of Arts dissertations in Nigerian Universities. His third novel, Lonely Days is probably his most ambitious literary endeavour to date. The novel predictably deals with an important aspect of the African culture-widowhood- and has its setting, predictably also, in African rural environment. Adebowale has two other yet to be published novels:Sweetheart and Lone Voice Bayo Adebowale has been described variously as “an advocate of the grassroots people”,”a village novelist” and “a protagonist of the African culture and tradition”and “Africa’s Charles Dickens”.
His pet project, The African Heritage Research Library (at Adeyipo Village, Lagelu Local Government Area,Ibadan,Oyo State,Nigeria) is the first rural community-based African studies research library on the Continent. The objectives of the Centre are (i) to serve the educational needs of students, researchers, scholars, documentalists, and archivists in Africa and all over the world;and (ii) to serve the socio-cultural needs of the local community people:peasant farmers,local artisans, craftsmen and women in African villages and hamlets. Adebowale’s Centre at Adeyipo Village, now incorporates the cultural aspect of the life of the people with the introduction of a Music of Africa Auditorium,a Medicinal Herbs Garden and a Talking Drum Museum.
The establishment of the African Heritage Research Library and Cultural Centre (AHRLC) has helped a lot to enhance the quantity and quality of Bayo Adebowale’s literary output.The African Heritage Research Library has a formidable Board of Advisors which include eminent scholars and writers all over the world like Ngugi Wa Thiong’o,Elechi Amadi, Niyi Osundare,Bernth Lindfors,Akinwumi Isola;Femi Osofisan;Sam. A. Adewoye,Lekan Oyegoke, Tony Marinho and Niara Sudarkasa.
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Tags: BAYO ADEBOWALE:A GREAT AFRICAN WRITER, BLACK NOVELISTS, BLACK WRITERS
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April 29, 2010
>FROM wikipedia.org
African literature
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
African literature refers to literature of and from Africa. As George Joseph notes on the first page of his chapter on African literature in Understanding Contemporary Africa, while the European perception of literature generally refers to written letters, the African concept includes oral literature.[1]
As George Joseph continues, while European views of literature often stressed a separation of art and content, African awareness is inclusive:
“Literature” can also imply an artistic use of words for the sake of art alone. Without denying the important role of aesthetics in Africa, we should keep in mind that, traditionally, Africans do not radically separate art from teaching. Rather than write or sing for beauty in itself, African writers, taking their cue from oral literature, use beauty to help communicate important truths and information to society. Indeed, an object is considered beautiful because of the truths it reveals and the communities it helps to build. [2]
Contents [hide]
1 Oral literature
2 Precolonial literature
3 Colonial African literature
4 Postcolonial African literature
5 Noma Award
6 Major African novels
7 Major African poets
8 Secondary literature
9 See also
10 References
11 External links
[edit] Oral literature
Oral literature (or orature) may be in prose or verse. The prose is often mythological or historical and can include tales of the trickster character. Storytellers in Africa sometimes use call-and-response techniques to tell their stories. Poetry, often sung, includes: narrative epic, occupational verse, ritual verse, praise poems to rulers and other prominent people. Praise singers, bards sometimes known as “griots”, tell their stories with music. [3] Also recited, often sung, are: love songs, work songs, children’s songs, along with epigrams, proverbs and riddles.[4]
[edit] Precolonial literature
Examples of pre-colonial African literature are numerous. Oral literature of west Africa includes the Epic of Sundiata composed in medieval Mali, The older Epic of Dinga from the old Ghana Empire. In Ethiopia, originally written in Ge’ez script is the Kebra Negast or book of kings. One popular form of traditional African folktale is the “trickster” story, where a small animal uses its wits to survive encounters with larger creatures. Examples of animal tricksters include Anansi, a spider in the folklore of the Ashanti people of Ghana; Ijàpá, a tortoise in Yoruba folklore of Nigeria; and Sungura, a hare found in central and East African folklore. [5] Other works in written form are abundant, namely in north Africa, the Sahel regions of west Africa and on the Swahili coast. From Timbuktu alone, there are an estimated 300,000 or more manuscripts tucked away in various libraries and private collections[6], mostly written in Arabic, but some in the native languages (namely Peul and Songhai)[7]. Many were written at the famous University of Timbuktu. The material covers a wide array of topics, including Astronomy, Poetry, Law, History, Faith, Politics, and Philosophy among others.[8] Swahili literature similarly, draws inspiration from Islamic teachings but developed under indigenous circumstances. One of the most renowned and earliest pieces of Swahili literature being Utendi wa Tambuka or “The Story of Tambuka”.
In Islamic times, North Africans such as ibn Khaldun attained great distinction within Arabic literature. Medieval north Africa boasted Universities such as those of Fez and Cairo, with copious amounts of literature to supplement them.
[edit] Colonial African literature
The African works best known in the West from the period of colonization and the slave trade are primarily slave narratives, such as Olaudah Equiano’s The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789).
In the colonial period, Africans exposed to Western languages began to write in those tongues. In 1911, Joseph Ephraim Casely-Hayford (also known as Ekra-Agiman) of the Gold Coast (now Ghana) published what is probably the first African novel written in English, Ethiopia Unbound: Studies in Race Emancipation [9] Although the work moves between fiction and political advocacy, its publication and positive reviews in the Western press mark a watershed moment in African literature.
During this period, African plays began to emerge. Herbert Isaac Ernest Dhlomo of South Africa published the first English-language African play , The Girl Who Killed to Save: Nongqawuse the Liberator in 1935. In 1962, Ngugi wa Thiong’o of Kenya wrote the first East African drama, The Black Hermit, a cautionary tale about “tribalism” (racism between African tribes).
African literature in the late colonial period (between the end of World War I and independence) increasingly showed themes of liberation, independence, and (among Africans in French-controlled territories) négritude. One of the leaders of the négritude movement, the poet and eventual President of Senegal, Léopold Sédar Senghor, published the first anthology of French-language poetry written by Africans in 1948, Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache de langue française (Anthology of the New Black and Malagasy Poetry in the French Language), featuring a preface by the French existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre. [10]
Nor was the African literary clerisy of this time relatively divorced from the issues that it tackled. Many, indeed, suffered deeply and directly: censured for casting aside his artistic responsibilities in order to participate actively in warfare, Christopher Okigbo was killed in battle for Biafra against the Nigerian movement of the 1960s’ civil war; Mongane Wally Serote was detained under South Africa’s Terrorism Act No 83 of 1967 between 1969 and 1970, and subsequently released without ever having stood trial; in London in 1970, his countryman Arthur Norje committed suicide; Malawi’s Jack Mapanje was incarcerated with neither charge nor trial because of an off-hand remark at a university pub; and, in 1995, Ken Saro-Wiwa died by the gallows of the Nigerian junta.
[edit] Postcolonial African literature
With liberation and increased literacy since most African nations gained their independence in the 1950s and 1960s, African literature has grown dramatically in quantity and in recognition, with numerous African works appearing in Western academic curricula and on “best of” lists compiled at the end of the 20th century. African writers in this period wrote both in Western languages (notably English, French, and Portuguese) and in traditional African languages.
Ali A. Mazrui and others mention seven conflicts as themes: the clash between Africa’s past and present, between tradition and modernity, between indigenous and foreign, between individualism and community, between socialism and capitalism, between development and self-reliance and between Africanity and humanity. [11] Other themes in this period include social problems such as corruption, the economic disparities in newly independent countries, and the rights and roles of women. Female writers are today far better represented in published African literature than they were prior to independence.
In 1986, Wole Soyinka became the first post-independence African writer to win the Nobel Prize in literature. Algerian-born Albert Camus had been awarded the 1957 prize. [[WHAT WE HAVE TO KNOW ]]The first novel in Rwanda.Mes trances a trente ans by Saverio Nayigiziki
[edit] Noma Award
The Noma Award for Publishing in Africa, begun in 1980, is presented for the outstanding work of the year in African literatures.
[edit] Major African novels
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (Nigeria)
Nuruddin Farah, From a Crooked Rib (Somalia)
Alan Paton, Cry, The Beloved Country (South Africa)
Gracy Ukala, Dizzy Angel (Nigeria)
Daniel Olorunfemi Fagunwa, Ogboju odẹ ninu igbo irunmalẹ (The Forest of a Thousand Demons) (Nigeria)
Dalene Matthee, Kringe in ‘n bos ([[:Template:Circles in a forest]]) (South Africa)
Mariama Bâ, Une si longue lettre (So Long a Letter) (Senegal)
Ousmane Sembène, Xala (Senegal)
Ngugi wa Thiong’o, A Grain of Wheat (Kenya)
Benjamin Sehene, Le Feu sous la Soutane (Fire under the Cassock) (Rwanda)
Thomas Mofolo, Chaka (South Africa/Lesotho)
Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions (Zimbabwe)
Dambudzo Marechera, The House of Hunger (Zimbabwe/Rhodesia)
Yvonne Vera, Butterfly Burning (Zimbabwe)
Mia Couto, Terra Sonâmbula (A Sleepwalking Land) (Mozambique)
Ayi Kwei Armah, The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born (Ghana)
Ben Okri, The Famished Road (Nigeria)
J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace (South Africa)
Bessie Head, “When Rain Clouds Gather” (Botswana)
Sarah Ladipo Manyika, In Dependence (Nigeria)
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun (Nigeria)
Charles Mangua, A Tail in the Mouth (Kenya)
Camara Laye, The Radiance of the King (Guinea)
Nnedi Okorafor, Zahrah the Windseeker (Nigeria)
Monenembo Tierno, King of Kahel (Guinea)
Sefi Atta Everything Good Will Come (Nigeria)
[edit] Major African poets
Chinua Achebe (Nigeria)
Wole Soyinka (Nigeria)
Christopher Okigbo (Nigeria)
Lenrie Peters (Gambia)
Kofi Anyidoho (Ghana)
Dennis Brutus (South Africa)
Kofi Awoonor (Ghana)
Léopold Sédar Senghor (Senegal)
Glynn Burridge Seychelles
[edit] Secondary literature
Encyclopedia of African Literature, ed Simon Gikandi, London: Routledge, 2003.
The Cambridge History of African and Caribbean Literature, ed Abiola Irele and Simon Gikandi, 2 vls, Cambridge [u.a.]: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Table of contents
Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Words and Writing by Women of African Descent”, ed Margaret Busby (Random House, 1992).
General History of Africa vol. VIII, ed. Ali A. Mazrui, UNESCO, 1993, ch. 19 “The development of modern literature since 1935,” Ali A. Mazrui et al.
Understanding Contemporary Africa, ed. April A. Gordon and Donald L. Gordon, Lynne Rienner, London, 1996, ch. 12 “African Literature”, George Joseph
[edit] See also
Literature portal
List of African writers
African cinema
Nigerian literature
[edit] References
1.^ George, Joseph, “African Literature” ch. 12 of Understanding Contemporary Africa p. 303
2.^ ibid p. 304
3.^ http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/ent/A0802673.html
4.^ George Joseph, op. cit. pp. 306-310
5.^ “African Literature – MSN Encarta”. Archived from the original on 2009-10-31. http://www.webcitation.org/5kwDV5p8Q.
6.^ http://www.sum.uio.no/research/mali/timbuktu/project/timanus.pdf
7.^ http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,569560,00.html
8.^ http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/mali/
9.^ African Literature.
10.^ “Leopold Senghor – MSN Encarta”. Archived from the original on 2009-10-31. http://www.webcitation.org/5kwDVhgpr.
11.^ Ali A. Mazrui et al. “The development of modern literature since 1935” as ch. 19 of UNESCO’s General History of Africa vol. VIII p. 564f Collaborating with Ali A. Mazrui on this chapter were Mario Pinto de Andrade, M’hamed Alaoui Abdalaoui, Daniel P. Kunene and Jan Vansina.
[edit] External links
New African Literature resource
The Africa_(Bookshelf) at Project Gutenberg
African Languages and Literature at the University of Wisconsin–Madison
African Literature Association
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