African Literature

Each generation of writers is confounded by the simple and clichéd paradox – the more the world changes the more it remains the same. The imagination wants to be freed from the hold of the past, and yet it finds that the present and the material worlds are indelibly tied to that past. I believe it is to this tension that James Baldwin was speaking when he wrote that a writer cannot write outside his or her times. by Mukoma Wa Ngugi. [Pambazuka]

Conférence par le Prince Kum’a Ndumbe III à l’occasion de la conférence “The Implications of Language for Peace and Development” (IMPLAN 2008) en l’honneur du Prof. Birgit Brock-Utne, Oslo Conference, 2-3 May 2008. (more…)

An Interview with novelist, playwright and scholar, Francis B. Nyamnjoh. Interviewed by Kangsen Feka Wakai (Originally published in The Frontier Telegraph). we are there to capture the story of the African community, at home and in the Diaspora, with the respect, dignity and sensitivity that it requires given that Africa, as a continent has suffered and continues to suffer from stereotypes. [The Fronier Telegraph]

Wide ranging interview on the writing of Mukoma wa Ngugi, conducted by Francis Ohanyido. “Growing up in Kenya has shaped a lot of my political thinking; it has certainly colored the ink in my pen.” The interview first appeared in the Nigerian papers Weekly Trust and The Companion. [africanwriter.com]

Binyavanga Wainaina takes the occasion of the Cape Town Book Fair to reflect on the new world of African literature. [Mail&Guardian]

Par Patrice Nganang. Africultures No 60 (juillet-septembre 2004), S. 61. Malgré les tribunes offertes par la presse libre et les nouvelles possibilités offertes par internet, la poésie camerounaise demeure silencieuse. Une censure qui ne dit pas toujours son nom et l’irruption du politique dans le champ du littéraire minent la production. Analyse. [Full Text Article, html]

Article traitant de l’oeuvre de Kum’ a Ndumbe III. Par Bernard MBASSI. In: Ethiopiques n° 76. Centième anniversaire de L. S. Senghor. Cent ans de littérature, de pensée africaine et de réflexion sur les arts africains, 1er semestre 2006. [Full Text Article, html]

Par Bernard MBASSI. Structure et apories de l’argumentation féministe dans “C’est le soleil qui m’a brûlé” de Calixthe Beyala. Langues & Littératures, Université Gaston Berger de Saint-Louis, Sénégal, n° 9, janvier 2005. [Full Text Article, pdf]

Par Ousmane Kane, Document de travail, CODESRIA, 2003. L’auteur fait le point sur l’état l’avancement de la recherche sur la bibliothèque islamique afin de mettre en évidence l’existence en Afrique sub-saharienne d’un nombre substantiel d’intellectuels ayant écrit en langue arabe ou en langues africaines avec des caractères arabes. [Full Text Monograph, pdf]

Par Ambroise Kom. Face aux littératures dûment instituées d’Europe et surtout des anciens pays impériaux, la France et la Grande-Bretagne en l’occurrence, les littératures dites émergentes d’Afrique, d’Asie, des Caraïbes, et même de la diaspora européenne des Amériques et d’Australie, ont du mal à se faire reconnaître et surtout à dégager des classiques représentatifs de la culture dont se réclament leurs auteurs. [Full Text Article, pdf]

By Francis B. Nyamnjoh (originally published in Bookmark: News Magazine of the South African Booksellers’ Association, July-September 2006, pp.29-30). Drawing on his own foray into the world of South African publishing, Dr. Francis Nyamnjoh unpacks some of the challenges facing African literature – on the African continent. [Full Text Article, html]

Brian Chikwava comments on the literature of Zimbabwe. “Thankfully, in spite of or because of the difficulties that Zimbabwe is going through, the turn of the century has seen a quiet adjustment in the publishing of fiction, giving new voices a better platform to be heard”. [Full Text Article, html]

L’analyse de Ayelevi Novivor que Africultures publie ici apporte un nouvel éclairage sur la riche et complexe construction de ce récit. [Africultures]

Femi Osofisan reflects on the possibilities of literature and the burgeoning film industry in Nigeria. [Full Text Article, html]

By Frances N. Chukwukere. In: Africa Development/Afrique et Développement, Vol XXX, No. 3, 2005, Special Issue: All knowledge is first of all local knowledge. [Full Text Article, pdf]

By Ngugi wa Thiongo. In: Research in African Literatures Volume 31, Number 1. In most of my publications, principally in Decolonising the Mind, Penpoints, Gunpoints and Dreams, and Writers in Politics, I have tried to argue that the language question is so crucial because language occupies a significant position in the entire hierarchy of the organization of wealth, power, and values in a society. [Full Text Article, html]

By Ambroise Kom. In: Mots Pluriels, no 14 - June 2000. [Full Text Article]; [Texte en Francais]

By Jideofo Uwechia, West Africa Review (1999), ISSN: 1525-4488. [Full Text, html]