At the end of this lesson, you should be able to name some well-known African writers in English

and their works.

What is African literature?

Who are some of the African writers in English?
What did they write about?

African Literature
The literary works of African writers in English are part of the African literature. This body of works
refers to the ones not only produced in Afro-Asiatic and African languages, but also to those works
by Africans in English, French, and other European languages.

A few of the common themes in the works of African writers are the oppression of African people by
the colonizers, the European influences on the native African culture, racial discrimination, and pride
in African past and resilience.

Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) – This Nigerian writer was known for his novel Things Fall
Apart (1958), considered as the best known African novel of the 20th century. It deals with emergent
Africa, where native communities, like Achebe’s Igbo community, came in contact with white
missionaries and its colonizers. The novel is the first in sometimes called The African Trilogy. It was
followed by No Longer at Ease, published in 1960, and then Arrow of God in 1964.

Wole Soyinka – This Nigerian writer received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986, becoming the
first black African to receive such award. As a playwright, he wrote the satire A Dance of the
Forests (1963), his first important play that depicts the traditions of his people, the Yoruba. It was
staged in 1960 during the Nigerian independence celebrations. Also, he wrote fiction and poetry.

Example
“The Telephone Conversation” by Wole Soyinka

Wole Soyinka’s poem “The Telephone Conversation” first appeared in his collection Modern Poetry
from Africa (1963). As the title suggests, the poem is about a telephone conversation between an
African man and a white woman. Considering to rent the apartment owned by the white woman, the
African man confesses, saying “I hate a wasted journey—I am African.” Then as the conversation
goes, the woman shows her true colors. She asks, “HOW DARK?” then follows it up with another
question, “ARE YOU LIGHT/ OR VERY DARK.” Then asks again, “ARE YOU DARK? OR VERY
LIGHT?” Then the African man clarifies the question, saying “You mean—like plain or milk
chocolate?” Then he settles on this response “West African sepia... Down in my passport.” Perhaps,
out of ignorance, the woman says that she does not know the color. To simplify, the African man
says, “Like brunette.” Confirming what she already thinks about the African man, the woman says
“THAT’S DARK, ISN’T IT?” Towards the end of the poetry, the African man tries to describe the
colors of the different parts of his body to the woman. The poem ends with an invitation from the
African man for the white woman, saying “Madam . . . wouldn’t you rather/ see for yourself?”

Nadine Gordimer (1923–2014) – This South African writer received the Nobel Prize for Literature in
1991. She was known for her works that dealt with the effects of apartheid on her country. Apartheid
was a system in which people of color had less political and economic rights than that of the white
people, so the former was forced to live separately from the latter. An ardent opponent of such
system, she wrote novels that focused on the oppression of nonwhite characters like A World of
Strangers (1958), The Late Bourgeois World (1966), Burger’s Daughter (1979), and July’s
People (1981), all of which were banned in her country.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – This Nigerian writer is known for her widely-acclaimed novels Purple
Hibiscus (2003), Half of a Yellow Sun (2006), and Americanah (2013), all of which won awards. The
story of Purple Hibiscus is told through a fifteen-year-old girl named Kambili as she together with her
family endured domestic violence in the hands of her father. The story of Half of a Yellow Sun took
place during the Nigerian Civil War or Biafran War (1967–1970). Lastly, Americanah tells the story of
a young Nigerian woman that came to the US to study and to stay for work.
Example:
“A Private Experience” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“A Private Experience” is one of the short stories in the author’s collection The Thing Around Your
Neck published in 2009. It tells the story of two women, one named Chika and the other unnamed.
Chika is an Igbo, one of the largest ethnic groups of Africa, and an outward Christian (she wears a
rosary that her mother gave her, but she does not pray or believe in God). On the other hand, the
unnamed woman is a Hausa, another large African ethnic group, and a devout Muslim. They cross
paths during a riot at a market in the city of Kano, northern Nigeria. Both confused and scared, they
ran away from the market and hid in a small, abandoned store. Stuck together, the two women start
to talk and eventually learn more things about each other. Chika tells the woman that her sister
Nnedi was with her at the market and that they are both university students. She learns that the
woman sells onions for a living. The two women become closer when the woman shows Chika her
breasts with cracked nipples. Chika, who is studying medicine, examines the breasts and learns that
the woman has just had her fifth child. She then advises the woman to rub some lotion on her
nipples after feeding her baby and to put the nipple and the areola into the baby’s mouth while it
feeds. The woman’s eldest daughter, Halima, was at the bus stop selling groundnuts when the
confusion began. At the mention of her daughter’s name, the woman cries. As she wipes her tears
away, she says, “Allah keep your sister and Halima in safe place.” After more than three hours,
Chika ventures out into the street to go home, anxious to see her sister and her auntie. She leaves
the woman and promises to come back for her and her daughter. However, when she sees and
smells a recently burned body in the street, she gets terrified and runs back to the small store,
accidentally cutting her leg. The woman at the store cleans the wound and wraps it with her scarf.
Chika stays there with the woman until morning when it is safe to leave the store.

Explanation:
In different parts of the narrative, the narrator gives a brief glimpse of what happens in the future. For
instance, after Chika shuts the windows of the small store where she and the unnamed woman are
hiding, the narrator tells the reader what Chika will find out eventually—that Chika will see the
burned cars and will learn that the riot started when some Muslims chopped off an Igbo man’s head
for driving over a Koran with his car. Another instance is that after Chika mentions her sister’s name
to the woman, the narrator tells the reader what Chika will later do—that Chika will go to hospital
mortuaries to look for her sister, but she will never find her.