CHARACTERISTICS

OF
AFRICAN
LITERATURE
MYLENE B. MORALES
Instructor
AFRICAN LITERATURE
• Oral and written literary pieces
• European languages
Characteristics:
• slave narratives
• protests against colonization
• calls for independence
• African pride
• hope for the future
• dissent
What are the themes in African literature?

• clash between indigenous and colonial cultures

• condemnation of European subjugation
• pride in the African past
• hope for the continent’s independent future.
AFRICAN WRITERS
AND POETS
Chinua Achebe (1930-2013)
• Nigerian novelist 
• Things Fall Apart (1958),  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.
• also a noted literary critic
David Diop (1927-1960)
• one of the most talented of the younger
French West African poets of the 1950s
• angry poems of protest against European
cultural values
• empathy with Africa
Nadine Gordimer (1923-2014)
• wrote a number of novels set against the
backdrop of the emerging resistance
movement against apartheid
• rich imagery of South Africa's historical
development.
Mabel Dove-Danquah (1905-1984)

• Female subjectivity
• Strong-headed and masculine-hearted
women