Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Egerton University
Abstract
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Since literature is unimaginable and inconceivable outside the context of language, the issue of
language is central in discussions of African Literature. Colonization of Africa brought about
cultural alienation and one of them being the diffusion of the European languages into the African
culture rendering the African languages to occupy an underprivileged position. This can be
attributed to the fact that the European languages were used as the medium of instructions in
schools consequently making them to be the languages of the African elite. Most of the early
literary writers adopted the use of these imposed languages including Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Chinua
Achebe, Leopold Senghor, Wole Soyinka among other African writers. But with the need to define
African literature, there has been a debate about the language which the African literature should
adopt for it to be regarded as African literature. This debate has brought ideological division
among the African writers with some like Ngũgĩ questioning the circumstances under which the
African writers accepted ‘the fatalistic logic of the unassailable position of English in our
literature’ while other like Achebe supporting the use of the European languages with the view that
‘it will be able to carry the weight of his African experience.’ However, the question that demands
an answer is: have African languages become productive in African literature? This paper takes
the position that they have not, or maybe, they have not yet. One of the reason contributing to this
being that more contemporary African literary writers are using the European languages as a
medium of expression. Besides, the paper also makes recommendation that can salvage the
situation; one of which being the adoption of African languages as medium of instructions in
schools.
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Since its recognition as an independent as an area of influence in creative, African literature has
on occasion taken the form of a discourse about faithfulness to African roots that antithetically
ignores its very own roots. To be specific, the focus to a return to true origins, and particularly
with defining the original constitutes of African literature, has focused attention to the language
and identity in African literature. The substantive question in the minds of many is as follows:
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can literature in European languages be described as African literature? According to some
prominent writers and critics, only literature in African languages can properly be defined as
‘African Literature’. My argument here is that appropriate response cannot be provided to such
questions in the absence of an understanding of the arguments of for and against by the
Language is often on focus in postcolonial studies. This problem of language has been brought
out by the imposition and the encouragement of the dominance of the European native language
on the colonized to the extent that even the colonised were forbidden to speak their mother
tongues. Ashcroft et al. argues that control over language became the main feature of imperial
oppression. He further foregrounds that fact that ‘the imperial education system installs a
‘standard’ version of metropolitan language as the norm, and marginalizes all ‘variants’ (African
indigenous languages) as impurities’ (1989: 7). As a result of this, language became the medium
through which hierarchical structure of power were perpetuated during the colonial period, and
the medium through which conceptions of truth, reality and order were established.
In response to this systematic imposition of colonial languages, some postcolonial writers and
activists advocate a complete return to the use of indigenous languages in writing of literary
works. This was a way of rejecting the truth, order and reality that had been established by the
colonialists which was in a way denigrating the African culture through the underprivileged
position that the African languages occupied. The European languages have been the tongue that
depicted the cruelty and injustices practiced during the colonial period and it is the same
language that depicts that the African writers are using to talk about their African experience and
traditions – something which does not auger well with African writers who are pro the use of
indigenous languages in African literature. This rejection led to the emergence of the
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postcolonial voice which was followed largely by a discussion by which the imposed colonial
language, with its power, and the writing, with its signification of authority, has been wrestled
On the other side of this issue of language are those major African writers and critics who see the
language imposed by the colonizer as a more practical alternative tool to act as a lingua franca
among nations which do not have any common language and also to counter a colonial past
through deconstructing the standard European language in question and then reconstructing it in
a new literary form. The writers in this case, Chinua Achebe, for example, have appropriated the
European languages in such way that it expresses the African cultural experiences and therefore
giving it a distinct outlook from the standard European language. It can as well be argued that by
use of the colonial language to reflect to both the colonial and postcolonial experience is a
therapeutic act of resistance that was portrayed by such writers as Achebe. It is of course quite
apparent that we cannot use the English language the way the British do and therefore it needs
The debate on which language the African writers should use has been going on since the early
nineteen sixties after its instigation during the 1962: ‘A Conference of African Writers of English
Expression.’ However, there has been no clear-cut solution to this debate because of the
opposing perspectives by the African major writers such as Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Chinua Achebe,
Leopold Senghor among others. Several questions have been raised with regard to which is the
best language that African writers should adopt for purposes of their literary work. The
imposition of foreign culture has had detrimental effects on the African folklore with its infusion
of modern mannerism including its ways of speaking and consequently writing. Ngũgĩ (1994)
tells of his boyhood in Kenya, of how he was taught in his native language at school when
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suddenly the British Authorities forced schools to teach in English during the State of
Emergency in nineteen fifty-two. This validates the fact that the Europeans forced their
languages on Africa. But the question still remains: should African literature be written in
African language? Ngũgĩ terms the using of the European languages to map out the African
experience as unfortunate and feels that by doing this, we are enriching another culture with our
own experience.
Ngũgĩ and Achebe’s criticisms are what dominated the 1962 debate. Ngũgĩ’s argument against
the use of Europeans languages in African literature centres on the devastating role these
languages played in the colonization process. This process of colonization is brought out in
Decolonizing the Mind where he intrigues that ‘language was the most important vehicle through
which that power fascinated and held the soul prisoner. The bullet was the means of physical
subjugation while the language was the means of psychological subjugation’ (p. 9). His main
perspective was that the use of European languages by African writers was a deliberate
perpetuation of this subjugation, which he believed an African writer must take upon himself or
herself the responsibility of countering it. Achebe believed that the European languages could
carry the weight of his African experience contrary to Ngũgĩ who believed that African writers
cannot use these imposed languages and still achieve this goal. His radical shift from the use of
the European languages to the use of an indigenous African language (Gikuyu), was a way of
African language, is part and parcel of the anti-imperialist struggles of Kenyan and African
peoples” (p. 28). The overtone in this statement is Ngũgĩ‘s belief in the important role of
working class and peasantry in the continued struggle against the persistent influence of colonial
forces in the post-independence Africa. For him, a real African literature will only emerge after
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the Africans writers have severed ties with English, a colonial imposition. He argues that any
efforts to free Africans from the colonizing structures without first repudiating the European
The legacy of colonialism has thrown the African writers in limbo with regard to the kind of
language to use in their writing. Language is actually associated with identity and using any
other language other than the one in which a person identifies with in a particular community –
especially in writing – is what Ngũgĩ (1994) refers to as accepting the ‘the fatalistic logic of the
unassailable position of English in our literature.’ From this understanding, it is explicable that
Ngũgĩ is challenging the African writers who are writing in any other language other than in the
African languages to abandon writing in them. Ngũgĩ further feels that the ‘the choice of
language and the use to which it is put in is central to a people’s definition of themselves in
relation to their natural and social setting’ (pg. 4). To some extent, I do agree with Ngũgĩ with
regard to his perspective in the sense that the use of the foreign languages imposed on the
Africans especially the writers is pushing the legacy of colonialism far beyond the limits which
During the 1962 meeting entitled ‘A Conference of African Writers of English Expression’,
Ngũgĩ expressed his concern for the title of the conference itself since, to him, it was already a
Was it literature about Africa or the African experience? Was it literature written by
Africans? What about a non-African who wrote about Africa: did his work qualify as
African literature? What if an African set his work in Greenland: did it qualify as African
literature? Or were African language the criteria? OK: what about Arabic, was it not
foreign to Africa? What about French and English, which had become African languages?
What if an European (sic) wrote about Europe in African language? . . . .
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(Pg. 6).
From this, we can surmise that this conference for African writers expressing themselves in
English apparently excluded those African writers who wrote in African languages. The most
urgent issue that they should have addressed is ‘What is African Literature?’ To paraphrase this,
the argument remains that: must African literature be written in African Language? Or will
African Literature be defined as any literature written about people of Africa in a language other
than theirs? As this argument builds up, the purpose of this write-up is to place in proper
perspective how the various African writers and scholars have been able to express their thoughts
This nineteen sixty-two gathering represented the first shot in what was to become a redundant
traditional of publicly evoking African literature’s language problem. Right from the beginning,
at a time when the very existence of an African literature remained an enigma in the literary
cosmos, a strong feeling of disapproval was already attached to the fact of writing in European
languages. This subject did not only receive greater attention to Ngũgĩ alone but also to Obi
Wali, whose rejoinder to the question appeared on the then popularly known magazine –
Transition. By and large, these author and critic assume an intimate correlation in their view on
the issue of language, as we shall see later. Their view is a fundamental one and is shared by all
Most of African literature in the colonial and postcolonial Africa has been written in European
languages especially in English and French. Ngũgĩ for this reason argues that to rid of the legacy
of colonialism, African writers must begin writing in their native languages and that literature in
any other language other than the African languages is not African literature but rather be
considered as ‘Afro-European literature.’ For one to be able to use the colonial language in their
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writing, they have to be learned and through this, the use of these Europeans languages
inherently makes African literature to be the literature of the elite class. Ngũgĩ therefore took a
radical move to stop writing in these imposed European languages and in its place started writing
in the Gikuyu language which is one of the indigenous languages spoken in Kenya. He opines
that this will be able to reach his target audience who are mostly the proletariat instead of the
petty bourgeoisie born of colonial schools and universities. Ngũgĩ in his collection of essay,
Decolonizing the Mind, thus contends that African literature can only be written in indigenous
African languages.
Ngũgĩ (1994) further argues that the only way for the utilisation of African ideas, African
philosophies and folklore and imagery to the fullest is to ‘translate them almost literary from the
African language native to the writer into whatever language he is using as a medium of
expression’ (pg. 8). Ngũgĩ , being among the most radical African writers who have chosen to
turn away from English, posits that through language people are also able to not only describe
the world but also understand themselves by it. Ngũgĩ has actually put this into practice with the
publication of his works starting with the play I Will Marry When I Want to his latest novel
Wizard of the Crow in the Gikuyu with their translation into the English language being read
worldwide. Writing in Gikuyu is therefore Ngũgĩ ’s way of going back to Gikuyu traditions and
also acknowledging and communicating there continuing presence. However, are the translated
text the same to the original ones or are there some changes in meaning which are brought about
by the translation? It is obvious that translation from one language to another carries with it
circumlocution and sometimes omissions in cases where the language in which it is being
translated to, say English, does not have the exact equivalent rendering the intended meaning
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ambiguous, unclear and inauthentic. This in some way throws doubts into Ngũgĩ’s proposal of
However, the choice of language, according to Ngũgĩ, is what validates the term ‘African
Literature’. Ngũgĩ therefore advocates the search for a liberating perspective within which to see
ourselves and other selves within the universe. In this way, I can argue beyond reasonable doubt
that Ngũgĩ plays a major role in the deconstruction of the use of the imposed and inherited
European languages that has continually played a key role in the perpetuation of the old
African literature and this kind of relevance is what cultivates progress and development in the
field of the growing African literature. Ngũgĩ is opinionated that if African literature is not
written in any African language and put the European languages in their proper place as
periphery or tributary rather than core, it risks perpetuating the alienation of the African subject
from her African context. He is in a way not concerned primarily with the universality of the
language but with preserving the uniqueness and specificity of individual groups through
literature.
In all these ways though, Ngũgĩ is pointing out his commitment and dedication to his roots; a
commitment that is so much that he has chosen to write in the Gikuyu language which rather
confirms his polemic stance on the issue of languages in African literature. He does not stop here
in his defence for the use of the indigenous languages in African literature but goes to the extent
of chiding other writers like Achebe and the other Nigerian writer, Gabriel Okara, for writing in
English. But then, the question of how the literature in African language will be able to reach a
wider audience beckons in spite of the fact that Swahili is among the most spoken African
languages in Africa, it goes without saying that its audience is majorly restricted to the East and
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Central Africa let alone Gikuyu – the language in which Ngũgĩ is currently using in his literary
works – which restricted to a small community in Kenya. Ngũgĩ suggests a solution to this by
Ngũgĩ is not alone in this fight for the adoption of African languages in writing African
literature. Obi Wali has also come out strongly in his espousal of the use of African languages in
the writing of African literary work. Just like Ngũgĩ, Obi in his essay, "Dead End of African
Literature", puts it unequivocally that “….until these writers and their Western midwives accept
the fact that any true African literature must be written in African languages, they would be
merely pursuing a dead end, which can only lead to sterility, uncreativity and frustration” (pg.
97). Wali, just like Ngũgĩ becomes the voice of those who were pro-African literature in African
languages. Wali in his criticism of the 1962 ‘A Conference of African Writers of English
Expression’ apparently stated that his aim was not to discredit those writers who have achieved
much through the use of the rather imposed European languages but to point out that the whole
uncritical acceptance of English and French as the inevitable medium for the educated African
writing is misdirected. His position was that African languages should not be relegated and
underestimated – statuses that can be termed as irrelevant – and in its place exalt the language of
the imperialist.
encourages the use of language not only for oral communication, but also for discourse within
the community. Therefore, the creative writers have the very important duty of promoting the use
of language by the creation of imaginative literature. It is for this reason that he describes the
African writers of the English expression participating in the ‘killing’ of what should be termed
as African literature. In his essay, “The Dead-End of African Literature”, Wali, as quoted by
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Irele (2000: 7), questioned the claims to the originality and the authenticity made on behalf of
these literatures by what he called ‘westen midwives’, affirming to us that only literature written
or expressed in the languages indigenous to the continent could rightly be defined as African
literature. Irele, in support of Wali’s underpinning on the use of indigenous language, argues that
there was a fundamental disparity that existed between ‘the realities of African environment and
the determining features of the African personality and consciousness on one hand, and on the
other, the referential expressive modes of European languages’ in such a way that the latter was
incapable of capturing ‘the African experience in its full scope and inwardness’ (pg. 7). Thus,
according to Wali, literary expression by languages other than the African languages is doomed
The most important argument advanced in support of literature in African languages has to do
with the audience of literature in European languages. The fact that many Africans neither speak
nor read the then colonizers’ languages (but this has changed with time with many Africans
acquiring the former oppressors’ education) has been frequently mentioned in this debate. Wali
(1963: 13-14) concludes that African literature in European languages is, ‘severely limited to the
European-oriented few college graduates in the (then) new universities in Africa, steeped as they
are in European literature and culture’. While most African opponents of creative writing in
European languages assume a non-African audience for such literature and decry this fact, Ngũgĩ
considers this state of affairs symptomatic of a deeper malaise, whose overthrow cannot be
ensured unless African writers address themselves to the majority of the African people.
Notwithstanding, not all African writers are in agreement that African literature should be
written in African languages. Chinua Achebe, Leopold Senghor, Wole Soyinka among others
have been on the forefront to defend their use of European language as their medium of
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expression in their literary work. In his essay, Wafula (2002) presents the fact that there are
ideological underpinnings involved in this choice of language which have gone further to
indicate that ‘the language situations exhibit a lot of heterogeneity and complexity’ (pg. 97). To
paraphrase Wafula, the use of former colonial languages in African literary works by African
writers does not automatically lead to homogeneous reactions and results in every situation. It is
thus the expectations of many scholars that African writers will agree in one voice about the
choice of language but the antithesis of this is that the major African writers have disagreed
Arguing totally against Ngũgĩ ’s position on the use of European languages in African literature,
the late novelist and critic, Achebe took a practical approach. In Morning Yet on Creation Day,
he remarks that it is not only convenient to use those languages, but it is necessary because they
offer Africans a medium of communication that transcends all the ethnic groups. This he argues
in reference to his homeland Nigeria which is home to hundreds of ethnic groups where he
further remarks that a true national literature that will celebrate national culture will only be
possible through English. For him, literatures that are produced in indigenous languages should
simply be referred to as ethnic literature (93-94). He opines that language was given to him
rather than being imposed and that the African writers ought to embrace the advantage offered
by this ‘given’ languages to produce literature that will still convey their peculiar experiences,
for no one, he believes, loses anything for using languages that offer more choices in the
production of literature. Achebe admits that it is not right to abandon one’s mother tongue for
someone else’s and terms it as ‘a dreadful betrayal’ which ‘produces a guilty feeling’ but for him
he has no other choice: ‘I have been given this language and I intend to use it’ (p. 102).
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The literature of nationalism and decolonisation sought to articulate a new African identity
through the Africanization of the European languages. This was, according to Achebe, using the
European language to express the African experience. In his essay, “The African Writer and the
English Language”, he draws an example from the poem Night Rain, in which J. P. Clark
To Achebe, the expression ‘like ants filing out of the wood’ is beautiful because of the imagery
used. The use of this imagery brings out the authenticity of an African setting from the way he
puts it: ‘Of course, if you have never made fire with faggots, you may miss it’ (pg. 98). His
novel, Things Fall Apart, foregrounds the use of the English language to capture the African
experience from the way he has used imagery. This form of writing has also been adopted by
other writers like Wole Soyinka in his plays and also poets like Antonio Jacinto in his poem I
Achebe does not see anything wrong with the use of the English language to express himself. He
sees ‘a new voice coming out of African, speaking of African experience in a worldwide
language’ (pg. 98). He does agree that an African can learn English well enough to be able to use
it effectively in creative writing but he is quick to point out that the African writer cannot use it
like a native speaker. This now bring about the question of competency in the use of the foreign
languages in expressing the African experience. This incompetence in the use of the English
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language – which is by no doubt the most spoken language in the world – is cleared depicted by
Amos Tutuola who was writing in the English language but could not express himself adequately
especially in his novel, The Palm Wine Drinkard (1952). But many African writers including
Achebe and Taban Lo Liyong have come to his defence with his use of non-standard English
prose. Achebe argues that a ‘good instinct has turned his (Tutuola’s) apparent limitation in
language into a weapon of great strength’ and he (Achebe) goes ahead to call this incompetent
English as ‘a half-strange dialect that server him (Tutuola) perfectly in the evocation of his
bizarre world’ (pg. 101). Taban further espouses this by saying that Tutuola is not sui generis and
that any grammatical errors can be made by anyone who is using the English language as a
For Achebe, the justification for his use of the English language was simply because it is a lingua
franca i.e. a worldwide language. He gives the example where he visited Shabaan Robert
whereby he was given two poetry books by him. But since they were written in the Swahili
language, Achebe could not read them until he has to learn Swahili – something which he never
did. But to Leopold Sedar Senghor, the use of the French in his writing has made him to be
rather lyrical. Unlike Achebe who says that he was given a language and therefore he has no
otherwise but to use it, Senghor admits the fact that the language has been forced into him and
even if he was to opt between using the indigenous languages or French, he would still have
chosen the latter. I am sure that Shabaan Robert would have proved him wrong with the lyrical
Swahili poetry he has written and therefore in my case, his justification for the use of French
language rather than an indigenous one is unfounded. It is a fact that any language can become or
made lyrical depending on the level of creativity of the writers. English might not be such lyrical,
but the works of William Shakespeare, William Blake, William Wordsworth among other poets
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have made it to be lyrical with their heightened use of the English language. I opine that Senghor
could have made the indigenous languages lyrical if only he could have given them a second
thought.
The question that one might be asking at the moment maybe is; what is Africa’s lingua franca?
Most people regard Swahili, Hausa and Afrikaner among other languages as the original African
languages but then, are they spoken in the whole of Africa? Therefore the argument raging
among the writers as Samuel Gyasi Obeng and Beverly Hartford (2002: 3) argues out, have
failed to take cognizance of ‘specific ideological pressures and motivations that have been placed
on the shoulders of writers from particular locations.’ What Obeng and Hartford are expatiating
is the fact that the writers are facing major problems with regard to which language to adopt in
their writing. In his essay, ‘The Language of African Theatre,’ Ngũgĩ argues that the language
used for writing of any literary work should be understood by the target audience. But since
Africa does not have lingua franca, is the use of English – which is rapidly becoming the African
lingua franca – justified? With Africa, unlike the Western countries, being a multilingual space,
the choice of the language of authorship signifies the writers’ relationship with the people for
whom they write and their broad assumptions about nature, meaning and function of language
and literature. With the imposition of the colonial language and it being used as the medium of
communication in formal education, the African writers are caught up in a linguistic labyrinth.
Ngũgĩ contribution to this language debate is unprecedented and therefore his stance about the
debate is very important. However, it is of the essence that some of his arguments be criticised
and be problematized in order to underscore the complexity of the debate and the challenges it
creates for many African writers. With the issue of hybridity in place, a number of Africans are
acquiring these European languages as their first languages and in doing so, numerous African
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writers continue to write in English or French despite the consequences that this has on the
audience of their work as well as their relationship to writing and culture. Chinua Achebe’s
espousal of the English language looks like a riskier course at first. However, the perspectives
through which he defends his stance brings about a certain pragmatic reality which views the
dominance of these European languages in written literature as a fact of present day Africa and
also as a way of unifying the Africans of different linguistic backgrounds. Apparently, Achebe’s
stance has its pros and cons and his arguments have some faults but then they (stance and
arguments) remain the truer picture of the Africa today. Who knows, maybe they will be able to
do (as Achebe puts it) ‘unheard of things’ – ‘the recipe for the long-elusive linguistic-ethnic
One of the most fascinating characteristics of the literature of advocacy of writing in indigenous
languages is its frequent appeal to the adjective African rather to specific language qualifiers,
Swahili, Hausa or Afrikaner for example, being promoted. Ngũgĩ (1994) explicitly cautions his
readers against the adoption of ‘ethnic’ categories for the interpretation of the various crises on
the continent. It is apparent here that Ngũgĩ does not appear to be agitating only for Gikuyu, his
mother tongue, but for all African languages. While other African writers and critics associated
with this movement do not necessarily adhere to Ngũgĩ’s political agenda, they too conduct their
advocacy primarily on behalf of Africa, and secondarily in support of their regional linguistic
and ethnic identities. Therefore, Wali’s critique does not address the challenge of writing in any
one indigenous language distinct from those associated with European literature.
In the case of modern literature from Africa, it is this contested literature in European languages
and the debates it has generated that have specifically contributed indigenising the idea of an
‘African’ literature an anthology of interrelated texts produced by Africans at different times and
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in a number of different locations. By the most interesting bit of it is how this modern African
literature as grown. Irele (1981: 25) affirms that ‘modern African literature has grown out of the
rupture created within our indigenous history and way of life by the colonial experience, which is
naturally expressed in the tongue of our former colonial rulers’. Appiah (1992) also shares the
same ideology with Irele in which he notes that ‘African literature in the metropolitan languages
… reflects in many subtle ways the encounter between Africa and the West’ (pg. 20). Other than
dramatising and reflecting the encounter between Africa and the Europeans, literature in
European languages has created a space within which Africanness can be exemplified and
elaborated. Therefore, it can be argued that literature in European languages replicated the
encounter between the Africans and the Europeans to a greater degree. No critic has ever
questioned the Africanness of the indigenous languages and for this reason, the later texts in
African languages provided proof of African literature but did not become the centre at which
With the exception of Ngũgĩ, it is quite notable that few African authors and critics ever made
the transition from writing in European languages as a result of this debate on language.
Therefore, the recurrent dialogues about the language of African literature maybe considered one
of the most important debates that have delineated the genre of African literature. As result of
this, African literature as been defined in binary terms as the confrontation between the Africans
themselves and the West. However, it is worth noting that this perspective of Africa’s language
dilemmas is not necessarily shared by all African writers and critics, as discussed before, and
particularly has less appeal to the ‘modern audiences’ whose cultural dilemmas do not always
involve explicit opposition to the West. For the popular culture of this contemporary African,
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responding to the issue of language imposition is not an essential priority thus making the
development of African literature to be closely interwoven with the use of European languages.
For the purpose of this paper, let it be enough to say that there is a diversity of literature in
Africa, in different languages, different forms and different audiences. As far as language is
concerned, my primary focus will be on the way in which the likes of Achebe, Soyinka, and
Senghor among other writers of the European language expression have experimented and
manipulated these foreign languages in their literary works in such a way they express the
African culture and experience. I am taking this precedent position because Africa has
multiplicity of languages and choosing to write in any of them might limit the audience to one’s
literary work. If only Africa could have a lingua franca, then the language debate could be an
issue of the past. If Africa has to salvage the situation, then there is a need of the educationists to
adopt the African languages as their medium of instructions in schools. With this in place, I am
doubtless that we will have more African writers expressing themselves in the African
languages. This will help in defining the complete identity of African literature while at the
same time upholding and preserving it. Again, it will provide the versatility, diversity and
multiplicity of the African languages and consequently serve as a locus for the promotion of the
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