African literature Flashcards
Who doesn’t “see African literature as one unit but as a group of associated units in fact the sum total of all national and ethnic literatures of Africa.
Chinua Achebe
“African writing done in any language by Africans themselves and by others of whatever skin color … who share the African experience and who have African centered consciousness”.
Nadine Gordimer
Major Themes of African literature
Colonialism
Tradition
displacement
Liberation
Nationalism
The father of modern African literature.
Chinua Achebe
a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic.
Chinua Achebe
Critiqued Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1899), in which he accuses the popular novel of rampant racism through its othering of the African continent and its people.
Chinua Achebe
Name Chinua Achebe’s extraordinary works of the 20th century.
Things Fall Apart (1958)
No longer at ease
Arrow of God
Anthills of savanna
Chike and the river
He died at the age of ____ on March 21,2013 in _______.
82 ; Boston
a devastating depiction of the clash between traditional tribal values and the effects of colonial rule, as well as the tension between masculinity and femininity in highly patriarchal societies.
Things Fall Apart (1958)
a Nigerian writer whose works range from novels to short stories to nonfiction.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Characteristics of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie works:
Character-driven
Historical
Political
interweaving the background of her native Nigeria and social and political events into the narrative.
Works of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Purple Hibiscus (2003)
Americanah (2013)
We should all be feminists
The thing around your neck
Half of yellow sun
A feminist manifesto in 15 suggestions
an insightful portrayal of Nigerian immigrant life and race relations in America and the western world.
Americanah (2013)
a bildungsroman novel , depicting the life experience of Kambili and her family during a military coup.
Purple Hibiscus (2003)
Have been nominated for and won numerous awards, including the ____ ____ and ____ _____.
Orange Prize ; Booker Prize
is a Ghanaian writer best known as an essayist, as well as having written poetry, short stories, and books for children.
AyiKwei Armah
His novels are known for their intense, powerful depictions of _______ devastation and ______ frustration in Armah’s native Ghana, told from the point of view of the individual.
political ; social
Themes of AyiKwei Armah works
despair
disillusionment
irrationality
His works were greatly influenced by French existential philosophers, such as Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus
AyiKwei Armah
Works of AyiKwei Armah
The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968)
The healers
Fragments
The gist of The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968)
an unnamed protagonist who attempts to understand his self and his country in the wake of post-independence.
a Senegalese author and feminist, whose French-language novels were both translated into more than a dozen languages.
Mariama Bâ
one of Africa’s most influential women authors
Mariama Bâ
Writes powerful ______ texts, which address the issues of gender inequality in her native ______ and wider Africa.
feminist ; Senegal
Her anger and frustration at the _______ structures which defined her life spill over into her literature.
patriarchal
herself experienced many of the prejudices facing women: she struggled for an education against her traditional grandparents, and was left to look after her nine children after divorcing a prominent politician.
Mariama Bâ
novel that depicts, simultaneously, its protagonist’s strength and powerlessness within marriage and wider society.
So Long A Letter (1981)
A Somali novelist.
Nuruddin Farah
He has also written plays both for ____ and _____, as well as short stories and essays.
stage ; radio
His work revolves around his ________ of his native country.
experiences
His work revolves around his ________ of his native country.
experiences
Works of Nuruddin Farah
From a Crooked Rib (1970)
Crossbones
Sardines
stems from a Somalian proverb “God created woman from a crooked rib, and anyone who trieth to straighten it, breaketh it”, and is a commentary on the sufferings of women in Somalian society through the narrative of a young woman trapped in an unhappy marriage.
From a Crooked Rib (1970)
His subsequent works feature similar social criticism, dealing with themes of ____ and ______-_____ _____.
war ; post-colonial identity
oral literature is also called as
Orature
Types of Orature
Myth
Epic
Proverbs
explains the interrelationships of all things that exist and their relation to their environment
Myth
“Why the Sun and the Moon live in the Sky” is an example of a _____
Myth
elaborate literary forms that are performed by experts on special occasions. They often retell heroic stories of ancestors
Epics
short, witty, or ironic statements, metaphorical in their formulation which aim to communicate a response to specific situations, usually offering advice or persuading.
Proverbs
Genres of Written literature
Novels, Plays, Poems, Tales.
Nowadays, this literature is more focused on the present realities of African life, which often represent the past negatively.
Written literature
Written literature was concerned with responding and revolting against ______ and ______ and reconstructing an African past.
colonialism ; corruption
Written literature. Example: Things Fall Apart
Novel
Written literature.Example: Master Harold and the Boys
Plays
Written literature. Example: Africa My Africa
Poem
Written literature. Example: The Tortoise, the Dog, and the Farmer
Tales
