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Efuru then tries to look for him, but after failing, she leaves his house and
goes back to the house of her father who receives her happily as she can
care for him better than others. Efuru then meets Gilbert, an educated
man in her age group. He asks to marry her and follows traditions by
visiting her father, and she accepts. The first year of their marriage is a
happy one. However, Efuru is not able to conceive any children, so this
begins to cause trouble. She is later chosen by the goddess of the lake,
Uhamiri, to be one of her worshipers, Uhamiri being known to offer her
worshipers wealth and beauty but few children. Efurus second marriage
eventually also fails as her husband mistreats her in favor of his second
.and third wives
Characters in Efuru
Ogonim - Efurus firstborn daughter. A healthy baby girl until the age
of two when she becomes ill and dies.
Dr Uzaru - Efuru lived with Dr. Uzaru and his mother until the age of
fifteen. He treats Nwosu and Nnona under Efurus request.
Nwosus wife is shown to be wise when she advises her husband to use
their earnings to pay off some of their debt, which he disregards by buying
a title and later regrets doing so.
very common and even necessary if the other wife (or wives) cannot bear
children or if she is difficult to handle as Nkoyeni turns out to be. We also
learn about the usual occupations of the people such as commerce and
fishing, not to mention ceremonies that are considered very important,
especially taking ones bath which is a euphemism for female
circumcision considered important before pregnancy in order to make a
safe birth more likely, and burial, which is shown after the death of
Ogonim.
such as bringing wine to her father before she marries, and even leave her
husbands when they mistreat her, but she is also represented as an
industrious and productive woman who becomes a pillar in society
through her good deeds. Efuru does not break with tradition but refuses
for it to be used as a method of subordinating women.
Important Quotes
Two men do not live together: Adizuas family members use this
as an argument when they try to convince him to take a second wife. They
are saying that Efuru cannot be considered a woman since she has been
unable to give him children.
[7]
agree that the dialogic style established in Efuru is even more central to
the novels thematic concerns Through the dialogue that Nwapa uses,
she is able to paint an accurate picture of what life for Igbo women is like.
Critics such as Christine Loflin point out that the use of dialogue
in Efuruallows a sense of African feminism to emerge, free of Western
imposed values.[10] Other critics however, reprimand the excessive use of
dialogue, considering the novel too gossipy.[11]
References
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Efuru
Dialogue
s
Notes
Links
Teaching
Citations
Dialogues
of those he swindles.
Efuru and Her Husbands
Though she loves both men she marries, Efuru does
not forget about her own rights. Efuru thinks of her
husbands and although she is not able to bear more than
one child, she is willing to bring a second wife into her
home in order to give her husbands more children, much
like Fanny in Agatha Moudio's Son. However, she keeps
her dignity and leaves her husbands when they abandon
her illustrating her strength to care for herself.
T
Notes
Links
** Kabalarian Philosophy
This site offers a description of the name Efuru and
its meaning.
**Flora Nwapa
This site provides biographical information on Flora
Nwapa as well as a number of links to other pages. It is
Teaching
Citations
Source: http://wmich.edu/dialogues/texts/efuru.html
Africa Resources
Literary
A Book Review of Flora Nwapa's Efuru
community, but she is not rebellious against her culture. On the contrary,
she shows reverence to the traditions of her people, and she never wishes
to overlook or discredit them. For example, although she believes in
romantic love and rejects to have an arranged marriage, she, on the other
hand, insists that her marriage with Adizua, her first husband, will not be
complete until he pays the dowry and fulfills her people's marriage
customs; only then that Efuru and Adizua "felt really married." (24) She
also never resists going through the painful circumcision, and she
acknowledges man's right to polygamy, saying, "Only a bad woman would
.like to be married alone by her husband" (57)
When reading Efuru as a feminist text, one important thing we must
bear in mind is the sense of location and cultural centrality. We need to
consider the culture difference and the importance of traditions in shaping
the identity of the individual, and we need to admit that what applies to
the women of Paris and Boston does not necessarily apply to the women
of Oguta. The cultural context is crucial to understanding the message of
the novel. Nwapa does not consider herself a feminist because she felt
that the feminist movement at her time is by and for white women only
and it does not include the black, the Caribbean, the Arab, or the Indian
women. The problem is that texts written by women from these regions
(The Third World) are usually misread, rejected, or neglected (In rare
cases, they might be canopied with white "imperialist" feminism). As
Barbara Smith points out in her 1977 essay "Toward a Black Feminist
Criticism": "The mishandling of Black women writers by Whites is
life and success. Ossai does not admit her weakness first and she tells
Efuru, "I can only solicit patienceI am proud that I was and still am true
to the only man I loved," (61) but she later faces reality and admits that
"Efuru's patience couldn't be triedLife for her meant living it fully. She
did not want merely to exist. She wanted to live and use the world to her
advantage." (78) This shows how different Efuru is from other women in
her society. Whereas Adizua who runs away with another woman and
never comes back to Efuru is fickle and weak and after being deserted by
the woman he elopes with he exiles himself and his life seems shattered.
Eneberi is also not that different from Adizua and has even wronged Efuru
.in a way that she could not forgive him when he accuses her of adultery
Efuru's insisting to "Live life fully" resonates with Nwapa's goal of
"Projecting positive image of women." Efuru does not live for herself only;
she commits herself to the mission of helping others live right. This is the
real meaning of sisterhood and woman empowerment which Western
scholars fail to see in the Third World womanhood. She excels in saving
other people's lives and having an influence on their personalities. She
changes Ogea from a useless girl into a good useful and obedient woman.
She keeps helping and lending money to Ogea's parents, Nwosu and
Nwabata, despite their repeated misfortunes and inability to pay back.
Through her connections with doctor Uzaru, she arranges to help sick
people who cannot otherwise afford being treated like Nnona, the old
.woman who has a bad leg and Nwosu who has a genital disease
it to any other culture, not only the Igbo culture. Being a follower of
Uhamiri is not obligatory as it appears through the example of Efuru's
mother, so if a woman chooses, she can still experience the joys of
motherhood and live her life like any other ordinary woman and not follow
the call of the woman of the lake. And that does not mean that if she is
not a follower she also cannot be successful and wealthy. If we look at the
example of Aajanupu, Efuru's aunt-in-law, we will find that she was
successful, fairly wealthy, has a strong leading personality and has a lot of
.children
:Works Cited
Nnaemeka, Obioma. Feminism, Rebellious Women, and Cultural
Boundaries: Rereading Flora Nwapa and Her Compatriots. From Research
in African Literatures, Vol. 26, No. 2. (summer, 1995), pp. 80- 113. Indiana
University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3820273. Accessed:
25/10/2009 15:56
Nwapa, Flora. Efuru. London: Heinemann, 1966
Smith, Barbara. Towards a Black Feminist Criticism. From The Norton
.Anthology of Theory and Criticism
Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc, 2001.
Pp. 2299-2315
Umeh, Marie and Flora Nwapa. The Poetics of Economic
Independence for Female Empowerment: An Interview with Flora Nwapa.
has done to upset the spirits, whose influence and power are at the center
of their lives. In her struggle to understand all that has happened to her
Efuru seeks the advice of the dibias, village doctors, and finds her spiritual
guide and the path she must follow.
Source: https://books.google.com.eg/books/about/Efuru.html?
id=_X5Y90o8b7QC&redir_esc=y
Comments on GoodRead
Published in 1966, this apparently was the first book written by a
Nigerian woman to be published (this is from Wiki so take with a pinch of
salt). It is set in the same area and tradition as Things Fall Apart by Chinua
;Achebe. The blurb with the book sums it up
Efuru, beautiful and respected, is loved and deserted by two ordinary
.undistinguished husbands
The setting is rural and Efuru is a woman who is independent and
competent and trades for herself. The writing style is very similar to
Things Fall Apart and if you enjoyed that you would certainly enjoy this.
Like Achebe, Nwapa commentates rather than judges, but the messages
are clear and this book is about the society of women in the same way
Things Fall Apart is about the society of men. In my judgement this novel
is every bit as good as Things Fall Apart and yet it is hardly known. Just
look at the difference in ratings; Things Fall Apart has 141 386 ratings and
5993 reviews and Efuru has 193 ratings and 17 reviews. This is not
because of a difference in quality; they are both great books and in my
opinion Efuru is marginally better. Perhaps because it is written by a
?woman? Surely not
The story opens a window onto customs and traditions going back
centuries which are beginning to die out with younger generations and the
encroachment of white culture and medicine. There is a not too graphic
but very powerful description of genital mutilation. Efuru is a wonderfully
strong and vibrant character; apart from her father the men in her life are
pretty useless and she concludes she is better off without them. She
appears to be unable to produce lots of children and this is a source of
sadness for her but she finds a role model in the form of the goddess of
.the lake who is beautiful, powerful, and independent and without children
.This is a great novel; much too neglected and well worth looking out for
female genital mutilation which was the standard in the early 20th century
as well as currently in some African countries. Her inability to get pregnant
dooms her first marriage and reveals the importance of having chikdren in
Nigerian life. although stylistically this was not a well written work,Nwapa
was emulating the storytelling nature of her people and the way people
talk.
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Written by: Harold Scheub
Introduction
African literature, the body of traditional oral and written
literatures in Afro-Asiatic and African languages together with works
written by Africans in European languages. Traditional written literature,
which is limited to a smaller geographic area than is oral literature, is
most characteristic of those sub-Saharan cultures that have participated
in the cultures of the Mediterranean. In particular, there are written
literatures in both Hausa and Arabic, created by the scholars of what is
now northern Nigeria, and the Somali people have produced a traditional
written literature. There are also works written in Geez (Ethiopic) and
Amharic, two of the languages of Ethiopia, which is the one part of Africa
where Christianity has been practiced long enough to be considered
traditional. Works written in European languages date primarily from the
20th century onward. The literature of South Africa in English and
Afrikaans is also covered in a separate article, South African
.literature. See also African theatre
The relationship between oral and written traditions and in
particular between oral and modern written literatures is one of great
complexity and not a matter of simple evolution. Modern African
literatures were born in the educational systems imposed by colonialism,
with models drawn from Europe rather than existing African traditions. But
.the African oral traditions exerted their own influence on these literatures
Oral traditions
The nature of storytelling
The storyteller speaks, time collapses, and the members of the
audience are in the presence of history. It is a time of masks. Reality, the
present, is here, but with explosive emotional images giving it a context.
This is the storytellers art: to mask the past, making it mysterious,
seemingly inaccessible. But it is inaccessible only to ones present
intellect; it is always available to ones heart and soul, ones emotions.
The storyteller combines the audiences present waking state and its past
condition of semiconsciousness, and so the audience walks again in
history, joining its forebears. And history, always more than an academic
subject, becomes for the audience a collapsing of time. History becomes
the audiences memory and a means of reliving of an indeterminate and
.deeply obscure past
Storytelling is a sensory union of image and idea, a process of recreating the past in terms of the present; the storyteller uses realistic
images to describe the present and fantasy images to evoke and embody
the substance of a cultures experience of the past. These ancient fantasy
images are the cultures heritage and the storytellers bounty: they
contain the emotional history of the culture, its most deeply felt yearnings
and fears, and they therefore have the capacity to elicit strong emotional
responses from members of audiences. During a performance, these
envelop contemporary imagesthe most unstable parts of the oral
imagery and the tension between the two sets, the imagination of the
audience is also engaged. As they seek the solution to the riddle, the
audience itself becomes a part of the images and thereforeand most
.significantlyof the metaphorical transformation
The riddle
A pot without an opening. (An egg.)
The silly man who drags his intestines. (A needle and thread.)
In the riddle, two unlike, and sometimes unlikely, things are
compared. The obvious thing that happens during this comparison is that
a problem is set, then solved. But there is something more important
here, involving the riddle as a figurative form: the riddle is composed of
two sets, and, during the process of riddling, the aspects of each of the
sets are transferred to the other. On the surface it appears that the riddle
is largely an intellectual rather than a poetic activity. But through its
imagery and the tension between the two sets, the imagination of the
audience is also engaged. As they seek the solution to the riddle, the
audience itself becomes a part of the images and thereforeand most
.significantlyof the metaphorical transformation
This may not seem a very complex activity on the level of the riddle,
but in this deceptively simple activity can be found the essential core of
all storytelling, including the interaction of imagery in lyric poetry, the
tale, and the epic. In the same way as those oral forms, the riddle works in
a literal and in a figurative mode. During the process of riddling, the literal
mode interacts with the figurative in a vigorous and creative way. It is that
play between the literal and the figurative, between reality and fantasy,
that characterizes the riddle: in that relationship can be found metaphor,
which explains why it is that the riddle underlies other oral forms. The
images in metaphor by their nature evoke emotion; the dynamics of
metaphor trap those emotions in the images, and meaning is caught up in
that activity. So meaning, even in such seemingly simple operations as
.riddling, is more complex than it may appear
The lyric
People were those who
Broke for me the string.
Therefore,
The place became like this to me,
On account of it,
Because the string was that which broke for me.
Therefore,
The place does not feel to me,
As the place used to feel to me,
On account of it.
For,
The place feels as if it stood open before me,
Because the string has broken for me.
Therefore,
(a San poem, from W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, Specimens of Bushman
Folklore [1911])
The images in African lyric interact in dynamic fashion, establishing
metaphorical relationships within the poem, and so it is that riddling is the
motor of the lyric. And, as in riddles, so also in lyric: metaphor frequently
involves and invokes paradox. In the lyric, it is as if the singer were
stitching a set of riddles into a single richly textured poem, the series of
riddling connections responsible for the ultimate experience of the poem.
The singer organizes and controls the emotions of the audience as he
systematically works his way through the levels of the poem, carefully
establishing the connective threads that bring the separate metaphorical
sets into the poems totality. None of the separate riddling relationships
exists divorced from those others that compose the poem. As these
riddling relationships interact and interweave, the poet brings the
audience to a close, intense sense of the meaning of the poem. Each
riddling relationship provides an emotional clue to the overall design of
the poem. Further clues to meaning are discovered by the audience in the
rhythmical aspects of the poem, the way the poet organizes the images,
the riddling organization itself, and the sound of the singers voice as well
as the movement of the singers body. As in the riddle, everything in the
.lyric is directed to the revelation of metaphor
The proverb
Work the clay while it is fresh.
Wisdom killed the wise man.
The African proverb seems initially to be a hackneyed expression, a
trite leftover repeated until it loses all force. But proverb is also
performance, it is also metaphor, and it is in its performance and
metaphorical aspects that it achieves its power. In one sense, the
experience of a proverb is similar to that of a riddle and a lyric poem:
different images are brought into a relationship that is novel, that provides
insight. When one experiences proverbs in appropriate contexts, rather
than in isolation, they come to life. In the riddle the poser provides the two
sides of the metaphor. In lyric poetry the two sides are present in the
poem but in a complex way; the members of the audience derive their
aesthetic experience from comprehending that complexity. The words of
the proverb are by themselves only one part of the metaphorical
experience. The other side of the riddle is not to be found in the same way
it is in the riddle and the lyric. The proverb establishes ties with its
metaphorical equivalent in the real life of the members of the audience or
with the wisdom of the past. The words of the proverb are a riddle waiting
to happen. And when it happens, the African proverb ceases to be a
.grouping of tired words
The tale
The riddle, lyric, and proverb are the materials that are at the
dynamic centre of the tale. The riddle contains within it the possibilities of
metaphor; and the proverb elaborates the metaphorical possibilities when
the images of the tale are made lyricalthat is, when they are
rhythmically organized. Such images are drawn chiefly from two
repertories: from the contemporary world (these are the realistic images)
and from the ancient tradition (these are the fantasy images). These
diverse images are brought together during a storytelling performance by
their rhythmic organization. Because the fantasy images have the
capacity to elicit strong emotional reactions from members of the
audience, these emotions are the raw material that is woven into the
image organization by the patterning. The audience thereby becomes an
integral part of the story by becoming a part of the metaphorical process
that moves to meaning. And meaning, therefore, is much more complex
than an obvious homily that may be readily available on the surface of the
.tale
This patterning of imagery is the main instrument that shapes a
tale. In the simplest of tales, a model is established, and then it is
repeated in an almost identical way. In a Xhosa story an ogre chases a
woman and her two children. With each part of the story, as the ogre
moves closer and as the woman and her children are more intensely
imperiled, a song organizes the emotions of helplessness, of menace, and
:of terror, even as it moves the story on its linear path
the iggiw (plural iggawen) who creates heroic poetry and who plays the
lute while singing the songs of the warriors. The diare (plural diarou) is the
bard among the Soninke. He goes to battle with the soldiers, urging them,
placing their martial activities within the context of history, building their
acts within the genealogies of their family. Drums and trumpets
sometimes accompany the maroka among theHausa. When a king is
praised, the accompaniment becomes orchestral. Yorubabards chant
the ijala, singing of lineage, and, with the oriki, saluting the notable.
Among the Hima of Uganda, the bard is the omwevugi. In the evenings, he
sings of the omugabe, the king, and of men in battle and of the cattle.
The mbongi wa ku pfusha is the bard among the Tonga of Mozambique. He
.too sings of the glories of the past, creating poetry about chiefs and kings
The images vary, their main organizing implement being the subject
of the poem. It is the metrical ordering of images, including sound and
.motion, that holds the poem together, not the narrative of history
The epic
In the epic can be found the merging of various frequently unrelated
tales, the metaphorical apparatus, the controlling mechanism found in the
riddle and lyric, the proverb, and heroic poetry to form a larger narrative.
All of this centres on the character of the hero and a gradual revelation of
his frailty, uncertainties, and torments; he often dies, or is deeply
troubled, in the process of bringing the culture into a new dispensation
often prefigured in his resurrection or his coming into knowledge. The
events cultural sanction. The tale and myth lend to the epic (and, by
inference, to history) a magical, supernatural atmosphere: all of nature is
touched in the Malagasy epic Ibonia; in the West African epic Sunjata,
magic keeps Sumanguru in charge and enables Sunjata to take over. It is a
time of momentous change in the society. In Ibonia there are major
alterations in the relationship between men and women; in Sunjata and in
the epic Mwindo of the Nyanga people of Congo there are major political
.changes
But, in Mwindo, why was Mwindo such a trickster? He was, after all,
a great hero. And why must he be taught by the gods after he has
established his heroic credentials? Central to this question is the notion of
the transitional phaseof the betwixt and between, of the someone or
something that crosses yet exists between boundaries. There is a paradox
in Mwindos vulnerabilityhow, after all, can a herobe vulnerable?but
more important is his nonmoral energy during a period of change. Mwindo
is a liminal hero-trickster: he is liminal while he seeks his father, and then
he becomes liminal again at the hands of the gods. Out there is where
the learning, the transformation, occurs. The trickster energy befits and
mirrors this in-between period, as no laws are in existence. There is
change and transformation, but it is guided by a vision: in the myths, it is
gods vision for the cosmos; in the tales, it is the societys vision for
completeness; in the epics, it is the heros vision for a new social
.dispensation
The heroic epic is a grand blending of tale and myth, heroic poetry
and history. These separate genres are combined in the epic, and
separate epics contain a greater or lesser degree of eachhistory (and, to
a lesser extent, poetry) is dominant in Sunjata, heroic poetry and tale
in Ibonia, and tale and myth (and, to a lesser extent, poetry) in Mwindo.
Oral societies have these separate categories: history, the imaginative
tale, heroic poetry, myth, and epic. Epic, therefore, is not simply history.
History exists as a separate genre. The essential characteristic of epic is
not that it is history but that it combines history and tale, fact and fancy,
and worlds of reality and fantasy. The epic becomes the grand summation
of the culture because it takes major turning points in history (always with
towering historical or nonhistorical figures who symbolize these turning
points) and links them to tradition, giving the changes their sanction. The
epic hero may be revolutionary, but he does not signal a total break with
the past. Continuity is stressed in epicin fact, it is as if the shift in the
direction of the society is a return to the paradigm envisioned by ancient
cultural wisdom. The effect of the epic is to mythologize history, to bring
history to the essence of the culture, to give history the resonance of the
ancient roots of the culture as these are expressed in myth, imaginative
tale (and motif), and metaphor. In heroic poetry, history is fragmented,
made discontinuous. In epic these discontinuous images are given a new
form, that of the imaginative tale. And the etiological aspects of history
(that is, the historical alteration of the society) are tied to the etiology of
mythologyin other words, the acts of the mortal hero are tied to the acts
.of the immortals
transformation, and so moving into the myth, the essence, of his history.
He thereby becomes a part of it, representative of it, embodying the
culture. The hero is everyman with myth inside him. He has been
mythicized; story does that. Metaphor is the transformational process, the
movement from the real to the mythic and back again to the real
changed forever, because one has become mythicized, because one has
.moved into history and returned with the elixir
In serious literary works, the mythic fantasy characters are often
derived from the oral tradition; such characters include the Fool in Sheikh
Hamidou KanesAmbiguous Adventure (1961), Kihika (and the mythicized
Mugo) in Ngugi wa Thiongos A Grain of Wheat (1967), Michael K in J.M.
Coetzees Life and Times of Michael K (1983), Dan and Sello in Bessie
Heads A Question of Power (1973), Mustapha in al-ayyib lis Season
of Migration to the North (1966), and Nedjma in Kateb
Yacines Nedjma (1956). These are the ambiguous, charismatic shapers,
those with connections to the essence of history. In each case, a real-life
character moves into a relationship with a mythic character, and that
movement is the movement of the heros becoming a part of history, of
culture. The real-life character is the hero who is in the process of being
created: Samba Diallo, Mugo, the doctor, Elizabeth, the narrator, or the
four pilgrims. Myth is the stuff of which the hero is being created. History
is the real, the past, the world against which this transformation is
occurring and within which the hero will move. The real contemporary
world is the place from which the hero comes and to which the hero will
.return. Metaphor is the heros transformation
The image of Africa, then, is that rich combination of myth and
history, with the hero embodying the essence of the history, or battling it,
or somehow having a relationship with it by means of the fantasy mythic
character. It is in this relationship between reality and fantasy, the shaped
and the shaper, that the story has its power: Samba Diallo with the Fool,
Mugo with Kihika (and the mythicized Mugo), the doctor with Michael K,
Elizabeth with Dan and Sello, the narrator with Mustapha, the four pilgrims
with Nedjma. This relationship, which is a harbinger of change, occurs
against a historical backdrop of some kind, but that backdrop is not the
image of Africa: that image is the relationship between the mythical
.character and African/European history
The fantasy character provides access to history, to the essence of
history. It is the explanation of the historical background of the novels. The
hero is the person who is being brought into a new relationship with that
history, be it the history of a certain areaKenya or South Africa
or Algeria, for exampleor of a wider areaof Africa generally or, in the
case of A Question of Power, the history of the world. These are the keys,
then: the hero who is being shaped, the fantasy character who is the
ideological and spiritual material being shaped and who is also the artist
or shaper, and the larger issues, the historical panorama. The fantasy
character is crucial: he is the artists palette, the mythic element of the
story. This character is the heart and the spiritual essence of history. This
is the Fool, Kihika, Michael K, Dan and Sello, Mustapha, Nedjma. Here is
where reality and fantasy, history and fiction blend, the confluence that is
at the heart of story. The real-life character, the hero, comes into a
relationship with that mythic figure, and so the transformation begins, as
the hero moves through an intermediary period into history. It is the heros
identification with history that makes it possible for us to speak of the
hero as a hero. This movement of a realistic character into myth is
metaphor, the blending of two seemingly unlike images. It is the power of
the story, the centre of the story, as Samba Diallo moves into the Fool, as
Mugo moves into Kihika, as the doctor moves into Michael K, as Elizabeth
moves into Dan and Sello, as the narrator moves into Mustapha, as the
four pilgrims move into Nedjma. In this movement the oral tradition is
revealed as alive and well in literary works. The kinds of imagery used by
literary storytellers and the patterned way those reality and fantasy
images are organized in their written works are not new. The materials of
storytelling, whether in the oral or written tradition, are essentially the
.same
The influence of oral traditions on modern writers
Themes in the literary traditions of contemporary Africa are worked
out frequently within the strictures laid down by the imported religions
Christianity and Islam and within the struggle between traditional and
modern, between rural and newly urban, between genders, and between
generations. The oral tradition is clearly evident in the popular literature
of the marketplace and the major urban centres, created by literary
novels, and A.C. Jordan (in Xhosa), O.K. Matsepe (in Sotho), and R.R.R.
Dhlomo (in Zulu) built on that kind of writing, establishing new
relationships not only between oral and written materials but between the
written and the writtenthat is, between the writers of popular fiction and
those writers who wished to create a more serious form of literature. The
threads that connect these three categories of artistic activity are many,
they are reciprocal, and they are essentially African, though there is no
doubt that there was also interaction with European traditions. Writers in
Africa today owe much to African oral tradition and to those authors who
have occupied the space between the two traditions, in an area of
.creative interaction
Literatures in African languages
Ethiopian
Ethiopian literatures are composed in several
languages: Geez, Amharic, Tigrinya,Tigr, Oromo, and Harari. Most of the
literature in Ethiopia has been in Geez andAmharic. The classical
language is Geez, but over time Geez literature became the domain of a
small portion of the population. The more common spoken language,
Amharic, became widespread when it was used for political and religious
.purposes to reach a larger part of the population
Geez was the literary language in Ethiopia from a very early period,
most importantly from the 13th century. The Kebra nagast (Glory of
Kings), written from 1314 to 1322, relates the birth of Menelikthe son of
extol Christianity and Western technology. But he was also critical of the
Christian church and proposed in one of his novels its reform. In his
second novel, Haddis alem(1924; The New World), he wrote of a youth
who is educated in Europe and who, when he returns to Ethiopia,
experiences clashes between his European education and the traditions of
his past. Drama was also developed at this time. Playwrights included
Tekle Hawaryat Tekle Maryam, who wrote a comedy in 1911, Yoftahe
Niguse, and Menghistu Lemma, who wrote plays that satirized the conflict
between tradition and the West. Poetry included works in praise of the
Ethiopian emperor. Gabra Egziabeher frequently took an acerbic view of
.traditional life and attitudes in his poetry
After World War II, important writers continued to compose works in
Amharic. Mekonnin Indalkachew wrote Silsawi Dawit (194950; David
III), Ye-dem zemen(19541955; Era of Blood), and Taytu Bitul (1957
58), all historical novels.Girmachew Tekle Hawaryat wrote the
novel Araya (194849), about the journeying of the peasant Araya to
Europe to be educated and his struggle to decide whether to remain there
or return to Africa. One of Ethiopias most popular novels, it explores
generational conflict as well as the conflict between tradition and
modernism. Kabbada Mikael became a significant playwright, biographer,
and historian. Other writers also dealt with the conflict between the old
and the new, with issues of social justice, and with political problems.
Central themes in post-World War II Amharic literature are the relationship
between humans and God, the difficulties of life, and the importance of
Garba Affa, Saadu Zungur, Mudi Sipikin, Naibi Sulaimanu Wali, and Aliyu
Na Mangi, a blind poet from Zaria. Salihu Kontagora and Garba Gwandu
emphasized the need for an accumulation of knowledge in the
contemporary world. Muazu Hadeja wrote didactic poetry. Religious and
.didactic poetry continue to be written among the Hausa
The novel Shaihu Umar, by Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, a prime
minister of the Federation of Nigeria, is set in a Hausa village
and Egypt. Jiki magayi (1955; You Will Pay for the Injustice You Caused),
also a Translation Bureau prizewinner, was written by Rupert East and J.
Tafida Wusasa. It is a novel of love, and it moves from realism to
fantasy. Idon matambayi (The Eye of the Inquirer), by Muhammadu
Gwarzo, and Ruwan bagaja (1957; The Water of Cure), by Alhaji Abubakar
Imam, mingle African and Western oral tradition with realism. Nagari na
kowa (1959; Good to Everyone), by Jabiru Abdullahi, is the story of
Salihi, who comes to represent traditional Islamic virtues in a world in
which such virtues are endangered. Nuhu Bamalis Bala da Babiya (1954;
Bala and Babiya) deals with conflicts in an urban dwelling. Ahmadu
Ingawas Iliya dam Maikarf (1959; The Story of Iliya Dam Maikarf) has to
do with Iliya, a sickly boy who is cured by angels and then embarks on a
crusade of peace. Saidu Ahmed Dauras Tauraruwar hamada (1959; Star
of the Desert) centres on Zulkaratu, who is kidnapped and taken to a
ruler; it is a story with folkloric elements. Dau fataken dare (Dau, the
Nocturnal Merchants), by Tanko Zango, deals with robbers who live in a
forest; the story is told with much fantasy imagery. In Umaru
Somali
Hikmad Soomaali (Somali Wisdom), a collection of traditional
stories in the Somali language recorded by Muuse Xaaji Ismaaciil Galaal,
was published in 1956. Shire Jaamac Axmed published materials from the
Somali oral tradition as Gabayo, maahmaah, iyo sheekooyin yaryar (1965;
Poems, Proverbs, and Short Stories). He also edited a literary
journal, Iftiinka aqoonta (Light of Education), and published two short
novels in 1973: Halgankiii nolosha (Life Struggle), dealing with the
traditional past in negative terms, and Rooxaan (The Spirits). Further
stories from the oral tradition were written down and published in
Cabdulqaadir F. BootaansMurti iyo sheekooyin (1973; Traditional Wisdom
and Stories) and Muuse Cumar Islaams Sheekooyin Soomaaliyeed (1973;
.Somali Stories)
Poetry is a major form of expression in the Somali oral tradition. Its
different types include the gabay, usually chanted, the jiifto, also chanted
and usually moody, thegeeraar, short and dealing with war,
the buraambur, composed by women, theheello, or balwo, made up of
short love poems and popular on the radio, and thehees, popular
poetry. Maxamed Cabdulle Xasan (Mohammed Abdullah Hassan) created
poetry as a weapon, mainly in the oral tradition. Farah Nuur, Qamaan
Bulhan, and Salaan Arrabey were also well-known poets. Abdillahi Muuse
created didactic poems; Ismaaiil Mire and Sheikh Aqib Abdullah Jama
.composed religious poetry. Ilmi Bowndheri wrote love poetry
tradition into the novel, its characters speaking in poetic language. The
novel launches an assault on ignorance, as the title suggests, born of,
among other things, illiteracy. And it takes a positive view of Somali
women. Customs having to do with marriage play an important role in the
novel, especially the subverting of such customs for ones own ends.
Cawrala and Calimaax meet onboard a ship that has sailed from Aden,
and they fall in love. But Cawrala has been promised by her father to
another man. Because of a rough sea, the ship founders, and Calimaax
rescues Cawrala from the water. Cawralas love for Calimaax intensifies,
and her relations with her father are therefore strained. She sends a letter
to Calimaax, who, because he cannot read, has Sugulle, his new father-inlaw, read it to him, and this leads to difficulties with his wifes family.
When Cawrala learns of this, she is distressed. Then she learns that
Calimaax died while at war. When Cawrala laments his death, her mother
forces her to leave home. Then, at night, a voice comes to Cawrala, telling
her that a hero does not die. And in fact, Calimaax did not die; he was
wounded, but he survived. Alone and wounded, he must fight a leopard,
and the words of Cawralas letter sustain him. In the meantime, Cawrala is
miserable, and she debates with her parents and members of her
community whether she should marry the man her father has selected for
her. She is forced to marry the man, Geelbadane. But she becomes so ill
that he sends her back to her family. Calimaax, learning of this, sends a
message to her family, asking that she be allowed to marry him. Her
family agrees, but she dies before the marriage can take place. Two years
after that, still suffering from his wounds and his love for Cawrala,
mrima, 1307 A.H. (1955; The German Conquest of the Swahili Coast, 1897
A.D.), by Hemedi bin Abdallah bin Said Masudi al-Buhriy, and Utenzi wa
vita vya Maji Maji (1933; The Epic of the Maji Maji Rebellion), by Abdul
Karim bin Jamaliddini. A novel, Habari za Wakilindi (The Story of the
Wakilindi Lineage; Eng. trans. The Kilindi), published in three volumes
between 1895 and 1907 by Abdallah bin Hemedi bin Ali Ajjemy, deals with
.the Kilindi, the rulers of the state of Usambara
It was Shaaban Robert who had the most dynamic and long-lasting
effect on contemporary Swahili literature. He wrote poetry, prose, and
proverbs. Almasi za Afrika (1960; African Diamonds) is one of his famous
books of poetry. Of his prose, his utopian novel trilogy is among his bestknown works: Kusadikika, nchi iliyo angani (1951; Kusadikika, a Country in
the Sky), Adili na nduguze (1952; Adili and His Brothers),
and Kufkirika (written in 1946, published posthumously in 1967). Adili and
His Brothers is told largely by means of flashbacks. In Kusadikika a fantasy
land is created. This largely didactic novel is heavy with morals, as
suggested by the allegorical names given to the characters. (In the
succeeding works of his trilogy, Robert moves away from the homiletic
somewhat.) By means of flashbacks and images of the
future, Kusadikika tells the story of Karama, which occurs mainly in a
courtroom. Like many other African authors of his time, he juxtaposes the
oral and the written in this novel; it is his experimentation with narrative
time that is unique. Robert also wrote essays and Utenzi wa vita vya
uhuru, 1939 hata 1945 (1967; The Epic of the Freedom War, 1939 to
.1945)
Significant poetry collections include Amri Abedis Sheria za kutunga
mashairi na diwani ya Amri (1954; The Principles of Poetics Together with
a Collection of Poems by Amri). Ahmad Nassir and Abdilatif Abdalla also
wrote poetry. AbdallasSauti ya dhiki (1973; The Voice of Agony)
contains poems composed between 1969 and 1972, when he was a
political prisoner. Euphrase Kezilahabi wrote poetry (as in Karibu
ndani [1988; Come In]) that led the way to the establishment of
freeverse in Swahili. Other experimenters with poetry included Mugyabuso
M. Mulokozi and Kulikoyela K. Kahigi, who together published Malenga wa
bara (1976). Ebrahim N. Hussein and Penina Muhando produced
innovative dramatic forms through a synthesis of Western drama and
traditional storytelling and verse. A play by Hussein, Kinjeketile (1969;
Eng. trans. Kinjeketile), deals with the Maji Maji uprising, and Muhando
wrote such plays as Hatia (1972; Guilt), Tambueni haki zetu (1973;
Reveal Our Rights), Heshima yangu (1974; My Honour),
and Pambo (1975; Decoration). The Paukwa Theatre Association of
Tanzania produced Ayubu, published in 1984. Henry Kuria experimented
with drama with such plays asNakupenda, lakini (1957; I Love You,
.But)
Muhammad Saleh Abdulla Farsy wrote the novel Kurwa and Doto:
maelezo ya makazi katika kijiji cha Unguja yaani Zanzibar (1960; Kurwa
and Doto: A Novel Depicting Community Life in a Zanzibari Village).
Tengo Jabavu and William Gqoba were its editors. It ceased publication
with Gqobas death in 1888. Imvo Zabantsundu (Opinions of the
Africans) was a newspaper edited by Jabavu, who was assisted by John
Knox Bokwe. Izwi Labantu (The Voice of the People) began publication in
1897 with Nathaniel Cyril Mhala as its editor; it was financially assisted
by Cecil Rhodes, who had resigned as prime minister of Cape Colony in
.1896. Much early Xhosa prose and poetry appeared in these periodicals
African protest, which was not allowed in works published by the
mission presses, was heard in the journals. In fact, Imvo Zabantsundu was
suppressed by military authorities during the South African War. Gqoba
and William Wawuchope Citashe published politically potent poetry in the
newspapers. Jonas Ntsiko (pseudonym uHadi Waseluhlangeni [Harp of the
Nation]) in 1877 urged Isigidimi samaXhosa to speak out on political
issues. Poets such as Henry Masila Ndawo and S.E.K. Mqhayiassailed white
South Africans for creating an increasingly repressive atmosphere for
blacks. James J.R. Jolobe attempted in his poetry to blend nostalgia for the
Xhosa past with an acceptance of the Christian present. (Indeed, many
early writers of prose and verse had Christian backgrounds that were the
result of their having attended missionary schools, and so shared Jolobes
thematic concerns.) Mqhayiwas called "the father of Xhosa poetry" by the
Zulu poet and novelist Benedict Wallet Vilakazi, but Jolobe was the
.innovator who experimented aggressively with form
Some of the first prose writers, such as Gqoba and W.B. Rubusana,
were concerned with putting into print materials from the Xhosa oral
traditions. Tiyo Soga and his son, John Henderson Soga, translated
Bunyans Pilgrims Progress into Xhosa asuHambo lomhambi (1866 and
1926). Henry Masila Ndawos first novel, uHambo lukaGqoboka (1909;
The Journey of a Convert), was heavily influenced by the first half of that
translation. The Xhosa oral tradition also had an effect on Ndawos work,
including the novel uNolishwa (1931), about a woman whose name means
"Misfortune." Brought up in an urban environment, she is the cause of
difficulties among her people and between the races.
In uNomathamsanqa noSigebenga(1937; Nomathamsanqa and
Sigebenga)the name Nomathamsanqa meaning "Good Fortune" and
the name Sigebenga meaning "Criminal" or "Ogre"the son of a
traditional chief provides sustenance for his people. Enoch S. Guma, in his
noveluNomalizo; okanye, izinto zalomhlaba
ngamajingiqiwu (1918; Nomalizo; or, The Things of This Life Are Sheer
Vanity), wrote a somewhat allegorical study of two boys, borrowing the
.structure of the story from the Xhosa oral tradition
Guybon Sinxos novels describe city life in a way similar to those
of Alex La Guma, a South African writer, and those of the Nigerian
author Cyprian Ekwensi. In SinxosuNomsa (1922), the main character,
Nomsa, becomes aware of the dangers of urban living, learning "that the
very people who most pride themselves on their civilization" act against
those ideals. In the end, Nomsa marries the village drunk and reforms
him; she then returns with him to the country, where she creates a loving
home, albeit a Christian one. In Sinxos second novel, Umfundisi
Yoruba
In a story from the Yoruba oral tradition, a boy moves farther and
farther away from home. With the assistance of a fantasy character, a fox,
the boy is able to meet the challenges set by ominous oba (kings) in three
kingdoms, each a greater distance from the boys home. The fox becomes
the storytellers means of revealing the developing wisdom of the boy,
who steadily loses his innocence and moves to manhood. This oral tale is
the framework for the best-known work in Yoruba and the most significant
contribution of the Yoruba language to fiction: D.O. FagunwasOgboju ode
ninu igbo irunmale (1938; The Forest of a Thousand Daemons), which
contains fantasy and realistic images along with religious didacticism and
Bunyanesque allegory, all placed within a frame story that echoes that
of The Thousand and One Nights. The novel very effectively combines the
literary and oral forces at work among Yoruba artists of the time. Its
central character is Akara-ogun. He moves into a forest three times, each
time confronting fantasy characters and each time involved in a difficult
task. In the end, he and his followers go to a wise man who reveals to
them the accumulated wisdom of their adventures. The work was
successful and was followed by others, all written in a similar way: Igbo
olodumare (1949; The Jungle of the Almighty), Ireke-Onibudo (1949),
andIrinkerindo ninu Igbo Elegbeje (1954; Irinkerindo the Hunter in the
Town of Igbo Elegbeje; Eng. trans. Expedition to the Mount of Thought),
all rich combinations of Yoruba and Western images and influences.
Fagunwas final novel, Adiitu olodumare (1961; Gods Mystery-Knot),
Zulu tradition. Cyril Lincoln Sibusiso Nyembezi and Otty Ezrom Howard
Mandlakayise Nxumalo compiled Zulu customs, as did Leonhard L.J.
Mncwango, Moses John Ngcobo, and M.A. Xaba. Violet Dubes Woza
nazo (1935; Come with Stories), Alan Hamilton S. Mbata and Garland
Clement S. Mdhladhlas uChakijana bogcololo umphephethi wezinduku
zabafo (1927; Chakijana the Clever One, the Medicator of the Mens
Fighting Sticks), and F.L.A. Ntulis Izinganekwane nezindaba
ezindala (1939; Oral Narratives and Ancient Traditions) are compilations
of oral stories. Nyembezi gathered and annotated Zulu and Swati heroic
poems in Izibongo zamakhosi (1958; Heroic Poems of the Chiefs), and
E.I.S. Mdhladhlas uMgcogcoma (1947; Here and There) contains Zulu
.narratives
These early Zulu writers were amassing the raw materials with
which the modern Zulu novel would be built. Christian influence from
abroad would combine with the techniques of traditional Zulu oral
traditions to create this new form. There would also be one additional
ingredient: the events that constituted Zulu history. Two outstanding early
writers dealt with historical figures and events. One, John Langalibalele
Dube, became the first Zulu to write a novel in his native language
with Insila kaShaka (1933; Shakas Servant; Eng. trans. Jeqe, the
Bodyservant of King Shaka). The second, R.R.R. Dhlomo, published a
popular series of five novels on Zulu
kings: uDingane (1936), uShaka (1937), uMpande (1938), uCetshwayo (19
52), and uDinuzulu (1968). Other historical novels include Lamulas uZulu
contemporary world are constructed over the old oral stories; the space of
the eternal, an aspect of the ancient tradition, gives way to the space of
the immediate, and the values expressed in the oral stories continue to
.influence the written ones
In a number of novels, Zulu writers contend with the conflict
between tradition and Christianity. In James N. Gumbis Baba
ngixolele (1966; Father, Forgive Me), a girl, Fikile, struggles with what
she perceives as a gap between those two worlds. S.V.H. Mdluli explores
the same theme in uBhekizwe namadodana akhe (1966; Bhekizwe and
His Young Sons): a good son retains his ties with his parents (i.e.,
tradition) and becomes a successful teacher. A bad son goes wrong and is
on the edge of destruction until he recovers his roots. J.M. Zamas
novel Nigabe ngani? (1948; On What Do You Pride Yourself?) is similarly
constructed around positive and negative characters. A stepmother,
Mamathunjwa, spoils her own children, Simangaliso and Nomacala, but
despises her two stepchildren, Msweli and Hluphekile. Christianity is not
the villain; instead it is the relaxation of Zulu values that is the problem.
Msweli and Hluphekile succeed, while the pampered children die in
shame. This insistence on retaining a connection with the African past
produced a literature interwoven with Negritude, or black consciousness, a
theme that would become a dominant one in South African politics in the
.1960s and 70s
Dhlomos novel Indlela yababi (1946; The Bad Path) investigates
the polarity between urbanized life and traditional practices and
IMAGES
QUIZZES
LISTS
Afrikaans, with its roots in Dutch, has been spoken in South Africa
mainly by whites since the 18th century. The First Afrikaans Language
Movement began in 1875, led by Stephanus Jacobus du Toit and others; it
represented an effort to make Afrikaans a language separate from Dutch.
poets of the early 20th century, while Marais in his poetry linked European
tradition to the realities of life in South Africa. Prose also appeared during
this period, moving away from such melodramatic works asJohannes van
Wyk (1906), a novel by J.H.H. de Waal, to more rigorously realistic
historical works, such as those by Gustav Preller. Realism began to
dominate Afrikaans prose, especially in the work of Jochem van Bruggen,
who wrote a trilogy, the first part of which was Ampie, die
natuurkind (1931; Ampie, the Child of Nature), a study of a poor white in
South Africa. A.A. Pienaar (pseudonym Sangiro) wrote popular books about
animals. Drama also began to flourish through the writings of Leipoldt,
Langenhoven, and H.A. Fagan. Langenhoven was also a popular poet, as
.was A.G. Visser
Dramatic events in the 1930sincluding a drought that caused
many farmers to move to the cities, significant political changes, a
sharpening of racial conflict, and the deepening of the Afrikaans-English
conflictisolated Afrikaners more dramatically in South Africa, and fiercely
partisan organizations such as theAfrikaner-Broederbond and Federasie
van Afrikaanse Kultuurvereniginge gained new adherents. The Afrikaner
poets known as the Dertigers (Thirtyers, or writers of the 1930s)
infuriated conservative Afrikaners with a new type of poetry. The poetry of
W.E.G. Louw, N.P. van Wyk Louw, and Elisabeth Eybers was at the heart of
this fertile activity, which centred on experimentation with form. Van Wyk
Louws Raka(1941) is a rhymed study of evil, with Raka as the incarnation
of this evil taking over a community. Uys Krige wrote romantic poetry but
is known for his war poetry and as a dramatist. There was prose written
during this period by Abraham H. Jonker, C.M. van den Heever, and
Johannes van Melle, whose Bart Nel (1936), dealing with the Afrikaner
rebellion of 191415, is considered by some to be the finest novel in
.Afrikaans
After World War II, literary magazines carried Afrikaans works. D.J.
Opperman continued the experimentation with the Afrikaans language in
his poetry, and he introduced decisively South African racial themes into
his work. In 1954 Arthur Fula became one of the first black Africans to
write a novel in Afrikaans. Audrey Blignault and Elise Muller wrote short
.stories and essays. Anna M. Louw wrote novels
The Sestigers (Sixtyers, or writers of the 1960s) attempted to do
for prose what the Dertigers had done for poetry. Jan Rabie, Etienne
Leroux, Dolf van Niekerk, Andr P. Brink, Abraham de Vries, and Chris
Barnard experimented with the novel and moved into areas largely
forbidden until that time, such as sex and atheism. Brinks Lobola vir die
lewe (1962; Pledge for Life) and Orgie (1965; Orgy) caused
sensations.Bartho Smit wrote Moeder Hanna (1959; Mother Hanna), an
acclaimed drama about the South African War. He also
wrote Putsonderwater (1962; Well-Without-Water), considered among
the finest plays produced in Afrikaans; it could not be performed because
of its political message. Elsa Joubert wrote a novel about a black
woman, Die swerfjare van Poppie Nongena (1978; The Long Journey of
Poppie Nongena, or Poppie). Karel Schoemans n Ander land (1984;
Another Country) moved into the sensitive political and social realities of
South Africa. Adam Smallwrote works, such as Kanna hy k
hystoe (1965; KannaHe Is Coming Home), that revealed the realities of
the lives of nonwhites in South Africa. Ingrid Jonker wrote intensely
personal poetry. Breytenbach wrote surreal poetry, his work revealing his
struggle with the Afrikaners political situation in South Africa.
His Katastrofes (1964;Catastrophes) is a series of sketches that
.take racism, death, and madness as their subjects
These themes persisted through the end of the 20th century. Riana
Scheepers, in Die ding in die vuur (1990; The Thing in the Fire), a
collection of short stories, blended Zulu oral tradition with the world of
apartheid. Marlene van Niekerk wrote Triomf(1994; Triumph; Eng.
trans. Triomf), a novel based on Sophiatown, a black settlement near
Johannesburg that was replaced by the South African government in the
1950s and 60s by a white working-class suburb dubbed Triomf. In Lettie
Viljoens Klaaglied vir Koos (1984; Lament for Koos), a husband leaves
his family to join the fight against apartheid. In his
novels Toorberg (1986; Ancestral Voices) andKikoejoe (1996; Kikuyu),
Etienne van Heerden dealt with 20th-century South African history. (See
also treatment of literature in Afrikaans in South African literature.)
English
Early works in English in western Africa include a Liberian
novel, Love in Ebony: A West African Romance, published in 1932 by
each of whom has an unsavoury past as well. Ngugi constructs the story
around the proverb Kikulacho ki nguoni mwako (That which bites you is
in your own clothing). Later in his career Ngugi, who spent many years in
exile fromKenya, engaged many writers in a debate as to whether African
.writers should compose their works in European or African languages
Other East African novelists include Okello Oculi, Grace Ogot, Peter
K. Palangyo, and W.E. Mkufya. In Timothy Wangusas novel Upon This
Mountain (1989), the character Mwambu climbs a mountain and comes of
age. In two novels from Uganda a boy moves to manhood: Abyssinian
Chronicles (2000), by Moses Isegawa, and The Season of Thomas
Tebo (1986), by John Nagenda, the latter an allegorical novel in which a
boys loss of innocence is tied to politics in that country. One of Africas
greatest novelists is the Somali writer Nuruddin Farah, who wrote a trilogy
composed of the novels Maps (1986), Gifts (1992),
and Secrets (1998). Maps is the story of a youth, Askar, growing up in a
Somalia divided by Ethiopia. With the mythic Misra, who becomes his
surrogate mother, and by means of a geographical movement that occurs
within a rich mixture of politics and sex, the boy seeks his identity, a quest
.that becomes linked to the identity of the land across which he moves
From Malawi came such writers as Jack Mapanje, whose collection of
poemsSkipping Without Ropes (1998) reflects on his four years as a
political prisoner, and David Rubadiri. Other writers from Southern Africa
include Fwanyanga M. Mulikita and Dominic Mulaisho from Zambia and
Berhane Mariam Sahle Sellassie,Daniachew Worku, and Tsegaye Gabre-
Sydney Sipho Sepamla, which is set in Soweto, exposes the fearful effects
.of apartheid
The playwright Athol Fugard in 1982 produced his play Master
Haroldand the Boys, the story of a white boy, Hally, in a restaurant in
which two black African men, Willie Malopo and Sam Semela, are waiters.
It is a story of a boys coming of age within the realities of the racist
system of South Africa. As the story develops, Hally transfers his fear,
love, and hate of his father to Sam, and in the end he treats Sam as he
cannot treat his father. The result is to open anew the wounds
of apartheid. The novel Julys People (1981), by Nadine Gordimer, who
received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991, takes place in an imagined
postindependence South Africa. The story deals with the Smales, a white
couple, and their relationship with July, their black servant. By means of
flashbacks the Smales reconstruct their past, the world of a Johannesburg
suburb during the apartheid period. There is a war, and Maureen Smale
and Bamford Smale escape from their suburban home and go north,
where these erstwhile liberals come to Julys rural home and learn, by
their interactions with July and his family and friends, that they cannot
move past their former relationship with their servant and cannot see him
from any perspective but that of liberal, self-confident white overlords.
That hopelessly compromised position is the impasse that Gordimer
investigates in this novel. D.M. Zwelonke is the pseudonymous author
of Robben Island (1973), a novel dealing with the political prison
maintained by the South African government off the shores of Cape Town
French
In the work of the earliest African writers in French can be found the
themes that run through this literature to the present day. These themes
have to do with African tradition, with French colonialism and the
displacement of Africans both physically and spiritually from their native
tradition, with attempts to blend the French and the African traditions, and
with postindependence efforts to piece the shards of African tradition and
.the French colonial experience into a new reality
In his novel Les Trois volonts de Malic (1920; The Three Wishes of
Malic), the Senegalese writer Ahmadou Mapat Diagne anticipates such
later writers as Sheikh Hamidou Kane, also of Senegal. In Diagnes novel,
Malic, a Wolof boy, is embroiled in a struggle between Muslim tradition
and the influence of the West. He goes to a French-run school to study;
then, instead of going to Qurnic school as his parents wish, he becomes
a blacksmith. Other early African works in French frequently deal with the
tensions between country and city, between African and French culture,
and between traditional religious practices and Islam. The novel Forcebont (1926; Much Good Will), by Bakary Diallo of Senegal, deals with a
youth caught in a conflict between his Muslim background and Western
values and culture. The Beninese writer Paul Hazoum
wrote Doguicimi (1938; Eng. trans. Doguicimi), a historical novel depicting
the time of the reign of the king Gezo in the ancient kingdom of Dahomey.
Some writers focused solely on African tradition, with its positive and
negative qualities; these writers include Flix Couchoro, whose
and Crpuscule des temps anciens (1962; Twilight of the Ancient Days),
.by Nazi Boni of Upper Volta (later Burkina Faso)
In Madagascar the journal La Revue de Madagascar (founded in
1933) encouraged writing by Malagasy writers and included the poetry
of Jean-Joseph Rabarivelo, whose La Coupe de cendres (1924; Cutting
the Ashes) and Sylves (1927; Forests) were collections of poetry that
sought to blend French and Malagasy cultural traditions and that shared
many of the themes later taken up by the Negritudemovement. Other
early poets writing in French in Madagascar include Elie-Charles Abraham,
E. Randriamarozaka, and Paul Razafimahazo. douard Bezoro produced
one of the first Malagasy novels: La Soeur inconnue (1932; The Unknown
Sister), a historical novel about the conflict between the French and the
Merina (Hova) state in Madagascar at the turn of the 20th century. MichelFrancis Robinary founded the newspaper Lclair de lEmyrne and wrote
.poetry collected in Les Fleurs dfuntes(1927; Dead Flowers)
After World War I, many of the Africans who had served in the French
army remained in France, bringing pressure on the country to end
colonialism and political assimilation. They met with blacks from the
United States, and the result was a new concern with and pride in African
cultural identity. This acknowledgement of blacknessof black roots, black
history, and black civilizationsbecame part of the struggle against
colonialism and evolved, under the tutelage of Lopold Senghor of
Senegal, Aim Csaire of Martinique, and Lon-Gontran Damas of French
Guiana, into the movement that became known asNegritude.
also dealt with the strains between African tradition and urban life.
Guinean Camara Laye wrote an autobiographical novel,LEnfant
noir (1953; The African Child). His most important publication was the
novelLe Regard du roi (1954; The Radiance of the King), the story of
Clarence, a white man, who, as he moves deeper and deeper into an
African forest, is progressively shorn of his Western ways and pride. At his
nadir, he begins anew, when, naked and alone, he embraces an
ambiguous African king. Mongo Beti (a pseudonym of Alexandre BiyidiAwala) of Cameroon wrote Le Pauvre Christ de Bomba (1956; The Poor
Christ of Bomba), a story that deals with the complex relationship
between Christianity and colonialism in Africa. His Mission termine (1957;
The Finished Mission; Eng. trans. Mission to Kala) treats the uneasy fit of
traditional Africa and Western colonialism, and Le Roi miracul (1958; Eng.
trans. King Lazarus) depicts a generational struggle within the context of a
quixotic view of African tradition. Another novelist from Cameroon,
Benjamin Matip, wrote Afrique, nous tignorons(1956; Africa, We Dont
Pay Attention to You), which shows young people caught between the
white mans world and the traditional African world. Ferdinand Lopold
Oyono, also a Cameroonian novelist, wrote Une Vie de boy (1956; A Life
of a Boy; Eng. trans. Houseboy), the story of a boy, Toundi, who leaves
his rural home and goes to the town of Dangan, where he becomes the
servant for a French commandant and his wife. Toundi undergoes a type of
puberty rite of passage as his experiences among the whites slowly reveal
to him the masks that cover their religion, their justice system, and their
family ideals. Oyono also wrote Le Vieux ngre et la mdaille (1956; The
Old Man and the Medal) and Chemin dEurope(1960; The Road to Europe).
The novels of Francis BebeyLe Fils dAgatha Moudio(1967; Agatha
Moudios Son), La Poupe ashanti (1973; The Ashanti Doll), and Le Roi
Albert dEffidi (1976; King Albert)show the influence of African oral
tradition in their style and themes. In the earliest of those novels, a man
falls in love, but his society clings to a tradition that will not allow him to
.marry the woman of his choice
Ousmane Sembne was a major film director and a significant
novelist. Les Bouts de bois de Dieu (1960; Gods Bits of Wood), his
greatest novel, describes the last gasp of colonialism through the story of
a railroad strike. In it Bakayoko is the spokesman for a future that will
combine African humanism and European technology. The characters Fa
Keta, Penda, and Ramatoulaye are all committed to change; each one is
involved in the strike, and each also demonstrates dignity and eloquence.
Fa Keta retains his nobility in the face of torture, Penda in the face of
ostracism, and Ramatoulaye in the face of enormous want and
deprivation. Through it all stands Bakayoko, who single-mindedly pursues
change, although he understands that change cannot be abrupt; it must
be anchored in the past. Hence his concern for tradition, of which the
novels women are symbols. Seydou Badian Kouyat of Mali wrote a play
about the Zulu leader Shaka: La Mort de Chaka (1962; The Death of
Shaka). Ak Loba of Cte dIvoire wrote Kocoumbo, ltudiant noir (1960;
Kocoumbo, the Black Student), which treats the negative efforts of
France on traditional African values. His Les Fils de Kouretcha (1970; The
leaves the home of his birth, journeys to the Brazilian city of So Vicente,
where he is educated, then returns to his home. While Lopes follows the
traditional movement of the oral tradition, he does so with grim realism.
When Chiquinho goes to So Vicente, his experience is anything but
glorious: he is out of work and alienated from his surroundings. And his
return home is not an improvement; there he finds poverty and suffering.
Lopes plays with the form of his story here. In the first part, Chiquinhos
home world is romanticized, which is a dynamic contrast with the second
part of the story: So Vicente and the experience of aloneness and
sadness. But, using irony as his device, Lopes brings those two worlds into
metaphorical union: the world of Chiquinhos past is actually revealed in
the world of So Vicente. In the third part of the novel, when he returns to
the world of his childhood, Chiquinho discovers that it is no different from
the alien world from which he has just departed. So it is that the child has
come of age and has moved through his puberty rite of passage: the
fantasy world of his childhood has been jarred into reality by his
experiences in So Vicente. Realism and fantasy thus come into union in
this story, the fantasy world of childhood juxtaposed with the real world of
adulthood, and the two are experienced now as the same. Materials from
the oral tradition are the stuff of Lopess literary storytelling: he makes
critical alterations as he moves from the romance of the tale to the
.realism of the novel
Another Claridade poet was Manuel Lopes, who was also among the
journals founders; he was a novelist and short-story writer as well. His
poetry is suffused with a personal lyricism and with social themes, which
reflect his concern with the problems and the cultural values of Cape
Verde. His novel Chuva braba (1956; Wild Rain) addresses some of the
same themes. Cape Verdean folklore is woven into his short stories,
including O galo que cantou na baa (1959; The Cock that Crowed in
.the Bay)
The literary magazine Presena (Presence), founded in 1927, was
a revolutionary Portuguese publication, urging a break with the
Portuguese past and encouraging ties to Cape Verde. Claridade led in
1944 to the founding of a new review, Certeza(Certainty), and with it
came a new generation of poets, including Antnio Aurlio Gonalves,
Aguinaldo Fonseca, Antnio Nunes, Srgio Frusoni, and Djunga, who
infused Cape Verdean literature with a new, youthful spirit that retained a
continued emphasis on life in the islands. This generation also
.represented a new political voice, demanding change and reform
So Tom and Prncipe also produced writing in Portuguese during
the first half of the 20th century. Caetano da Costa Alegre wrote poetry,
published posthumously asVersos in 1916, that deals with the tension
between Africa and Portugal. Joo Maria de Fonseca Viana de
Almeidas Mai Pon: contos africanos (1937; Mai Pon: African
Stories) centres on racial prejudice and self-awareness. Francisco Jos
Tenreiro, influenced by Aim Csaire, was an early Negritude poet; his
.poetry appears in Ilha de nome santo (1942; Island of the Holy Name)
Chiziane wrote Balada de amor ao vento (1990), a novel that looks more
realistically and less romantically at the African past and that blends the
fantasy of folklore with realism. Short-story writers of the late 20th
century include Macelo Panguana (As vozes que falam de
verdade[1987], A balada dos deuses [1991]) and Suleiman Cassamo. Llia
Mompl published the short-story collection Ningum mataou
Suhura (1988; Nobody Killed Suhura) and the novels Neighbours (1995;
Eng. trans. Neighbours: The Story of Murder) andOs olhos da cobra
.verde (1997; The Eyes of the Green Cobra)
:Citation
African literature". Encyclopdia Britannica. Encyclopdia "
.Britannica Online
Encyclopdia Britannica Inc., 2016. Web. 06 Apr. 2016.
http://www.britannica.com/art/African-literature
Discover Nigeria
the land of the dead rather than live without him. The war novel Never
Again (1975), which was her third book, drew its material from the
.Nigerian Civil War
Over the course of twenty-seven years, Nwapa published six novels,
nine children's books, three plays, two collections of short stories, a book
of poems and innumerable essays. Some of these works include One is
Enough (1981), This is Lagos and Other Stories (1971), Cassava Song and
Rice Song (1986), Wives at War and Other Stories (1980), Driver's Guard
(1972), Mammywater (1979), Journey to Space (1980), The Adventures of
.Deke (1980), and Women Are Different (1986)
At the time of her death, Nwapa had completed The Lake Goddess, her
final novel, and had entrusted the manuscript to a friend. It was published
.posthumously in 1995
Apart from writing books, Nwapa, with the help of her husband,
established herself as a publisher by launching Tana Press in 1976 after
becoming dissatisfied with her publisher. The company, which published
adult fiction, was the first indigenous publishing house owned by a black
African woman in West Africa. Between 1979 and 1981 she had published
eight volumes of adult fiction. Nwapa set up also another publishing
company, Flora Nwapa and Co., which specialised in childrens fiction.
With these books, she combined elements of Nigerian culture with general
.moral and ethical teachings
With regards to her political views, Nwapa considered herself a womanist a term coined by the American writer Alice Walker in her collection of
Death
On October 16, 1993, Nwapa died of pneumonia at the University of
Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu at the age of 62. She was laid to rest in
.her hometown of Oguta, the place which inspired much of her writing
Source: http://zodml.org/discover-nigeria/people/flora-nwapa#.VwWSDpx96t
Nwapa, Flora
Introduction
Flora Nwapa 1931-1993
Nigerian novelist, poet, short Full name Flora Nwapa-Nwakuche
.story writer, and children's author
The following entry presents an overview of Nwapa's career through
.1996
Flora Nwapa was the first Nigerian woman to publish a novel in
English, and hence gained international fame. Criticism of her work is
often influenced by feminist politics because of the woman-centered
nature of her fiction. Her work holds an important place in feminist
.discourse but has also garnered attention for its literary merits
Biographical Information
Nwapa was born in the East Central State of Nigeria in 1931. She
graduated from Ibadan University in Nigeria then Edinburgh University in
London. She taught English at the Queen's School in Enugu in the early
1960s, where she began writing her first novel Efuru 1966. She
returned to her home state during the Biafran War, which provided a
backdrop for her later fiction. After the war, Nwapa held ministerial posts
in the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare; the Ministry of Lands, Survey,
and Urban Development; and the Ministry of Establishment between 1970
and 1975. Nwapa also started her own publishing company, the Tana
distinguishes her writing from others in the Igbo school are the ways in
which she has used choric language to enable and to empower her
representation, creating the effect of a woman's verbal presence within
her text, while bringing home her subject matter by evoking the vocality
of women's everyday existence. Some critics complain about the lack of
traditional novelistic plot and structure in Nwapa's fiction, but other
reviewers enjoy the conversational narrative method. In her discussion of
Nwapa's Efuru,Naana Banyiwe-Horne claims, The constant banter of
women reveals character as much as it paints a comprehensive, credible,
social canvas against which Efuru's life can be assessed. Many reviewers
note the connection between Nwapa's narrative style and the Igbo oral
.tradition and praise Nwapa for her strong connection to her past
Principal Works
Efuru novel 1966
Idu novel 1970
This Is Lagos and Other Stories short stories 1971
Emeka: Driver's Guard [illustrated by Roslyn Isaacs] juvenilia
1972
Never Again novel 1975
Wives at War and Other Stories short stories 1975
My Animal Number Book juvenilia 1977
THE AFRICAN
Our Voices, Our Vision, Our Culture
WOMANISM THROUGH THE EYES OF FLORA NWAPA'S, EFURU
BY EBELE CHIZEA
Published on Wed, Jul 29 2009 by Ebele Chizea
Bronx, NY: I remember reading Flora Nwapa's novel, Efuru, at age 11
and being captivated by the beautiful, financially independent female
.protagonist who suffers many tragic events
Efuru is the story of a young woman in post colonial Eastern Nigeria
who wishes to be a wife, mother and a successful business woman. She is
able to become a successful trader, however, her personal life remains
bumpy. She loses two husbands and her only child. By the end of the
book, she visits the lake goddess Uhamiri after making some offerings. It
is then that she realizes that Uhamiri gives her followers wealth and
beauty but few children.
It wasn't so much the tragedy that seemed to surround her that
fascinated me, it was her strong spirit and her ability to take responsibility
for herself. She was the epitome of the modern woman. Efuru's cultural
background, the world surrounded by spirits and other mystical elements
including Never Again and Wives at War and Other Stories. She died on
October 16, 1993 in Enugu, Nigeria.
Source: http://www.africanmag.com/FORUM-1247-design004Womanism_Through_The_Eyes_of_Flora_Nwapa_s_Efuru_br_br_by_Ebele_C
hizea_african_magazine_culture_fashion
Date of Access: 8 April, 2016