Topic > History and Development of African Literature

Literature began to evolve when people began to write and express their ideas. Not everything expressed in words is considered a work of art, but when ideas are collected and written in an organized way it is considered literature. As human life began to evolve from the most basic to extraordinary forms, literature also gradually developed and took on many forms which paved the way for the enrichment of human knowledge through writings. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Literature is classified according to a variety of systems, including language, history, national origin, genre, and topic. Historical, social and political events have been reflected in the writings of many authors. Literature merges and merges with people's lives. One such literature that is alive and makes its existence known to the world is African literature. During decolonization, various people from Africa began to evolve as writers to bring out their voices as a representation of the African people. The Division in African Literature provides an overview of African writing that resolves confusion that may arise about the variation in writing, style, language, presentation, and point of view on the African country. The division includes African literature written by Westerners in Western languages, African literatures written by Africans in Western languages, African literatures written by Africans in African languages, and African oral traditions. African literature written by Westerners does not show the positive image of Africa and Africans. These authors are usually non-Africans who spent their days living in Africa for a particular period of time and in their works mentioned a particular incident or movement that prevailed during their visit to Africa. African literature began its waves during Africa's pre- or post-independence war period. There is a movement called “l'Eveil Africain” (African awakening). This period brought a change in the mentality of the people in Africa that, at least politically, they should not be ruled by anyone. Students such as Leopold Sedar Senghor of Senegal, Aime Cesaire of Martinique and Leon Damas of French Guiana settled in “l'Eveil Africain” with their “La Negritude” philosophy. Many other authors followed the “evil” such as Camara Laye, Ousmane Soce, Bernard Dadie, Ousmane Sembene, VY Mudimbe, Ake Loba, Cheick Hamidou Kane, Olympe Bhely-Quenum, Ferdinand Oyono, Tchicaya U'Tamsi, Mongo Beti, Birago Diop and Zamenga Batukezanga. Also in this group contained African writers who write in Portuguese such as Agostino Neto who is a first president of Angola, Pepetela, Jose Craveirinha, Luis Honwana, Jose Luandino Vieira of Angola. There are also authors of Lusophone literature such as Baltasar Lopes from Cape Verde. African literature in English has prodigious writers like Wole Soyinka, Cyprian Ekwensi, Chinua Achebe, Amos Tutuola, Gabriel Okara, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Flora Nwapa, Buchi Emecheta whose knowledge and contribution are irreplaceable and imperishable. The main writers of East and South Africa are Grace Ogot, Okot P'Bitek, Nruddin Farah, Ngugi wa Thiong'O, Alex LaGuma, Dennis Brutus, Matsemela Manaka, Sipho Sepamla, Thomas Mfolo and so on. African authors such as Ngugi wa Thiong 'O, Thomas Mfolo, Fagunwa, Mazisi Kunene, Ousmane Sembene and Cheikh Anta Diop encouraged writing African literature in African languages. Through their efforts and encouragement to write in their own language, they have prevented the extinction of languages ​​such as Wolof, Swahili,Lingala, Kikongo, Hausa, Sesuto, Xhosa, Zulu, Umbundu, Kikuyu and many more. African oral literature or African oral tradition is true African literature. Every African contributes their own national or native language. Griots, sculptors, painters and elders have every bit of information regarding their culture and tradition and pass it on to their children through songs, paintings, stories, myths and the like. In the oral tradition, elders play the role of librarians whose experience and knowledge are transferred from one generation to another. There is a melange of cultures and languages ​​in a huge country like Africa. Africa is often witnessed as simple by scrutineers who wanted to simplify it, generalize it, stereotype its people, but Africa is very complex. Five hundred years of European contact with Africa has produced a body of literature that embodies Africa in a very powerful way and now is the time for Africans to tell their own stories. In many African states, ethnicity has been followed. In Somalia, political observers and analysts were more optimistic. Somalia is located on the east coast of Africa, bordered to the west by Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya and to the east by the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden. It is slightly smaller than the state of Texas with an area of ​​637,657 square kilometers (246,135 square miles). It is mainly a desert country. In the twenty-first century it remains one of the few countries in the world without an effective central government, a condition it has been in since 1991. Due to its history of civil war and instability, the lack of a recent census, and the nomadic nature of many of its inhabitants, estimating the population becomes difficult. The independent Republic of Somalia was formed from the Union of British and Italian Somaliland Dependencies in 1960. The constitution adopted in 1961 provided for a parliamentary democracy, operating in Somalia for eight years, with political parties and movements organized primarily around ethnic or to the clan. loyalty. The parliamentary period ended in 1969 when Siad Barre (1919-1995) came to power. Political repression, gross human rights violations, clan and regional loyalty and rivalry are the characteristics of Siad Barre's government which was manipulated in favor of Siad Barre. benefit. As he began to carry out Cold War politics, Siad Barre's regime began to decline and his country began to fall apart. Even after Siad Barre's reign as ruler, the country did not find a unified or stable succession. The armed militias that clashed with each other prevented the establishment of a central government. These events not only produced the high number of victims, but also destroyed the economic and social infrastructure of the nation. As central government development failed, regional governments formed with the Republic of Somaliland declaring its existence in the north and Puntland, which has been self-governing since 1998, taking steps towards its own independent republic in the central part of the country. A transitional national government was established for a period of three years after the Djibouti conference in 2000. However, its authority was not recognized in Somaliland or Puntland or by several fractional leaders, and its official existence ended in August 2003. New efforts were undertaken in 2004 to create the central government of Somalia. In January 2004, during the meeting between warlords and politicians in Kenya, it was decided to establish a new Transitional National Assembly (TNA). Despite periodically arising conflicts, the TNA began functioning in August 2004. On October 10, 2004, Abdullah Yussuf Ahmed (1934), leader of Puntland, was elected president of Somalia by the TNA. TODecember Ali Mohamed Ghedi (1952) was chosen as Prime Minister by the TNA. Since President Ahmed was denounced as a war criminal by Somaliland leaders soon after his election and border relations between Ahmed's Puntland and Somaliland are hotly contested, optimism about the new transitional government likely remains a rare commodity . Nuruddin Farah was born in 1945 in Baidoa, in what was then Italian Somalia. He comes from the Ogaden Darod clan. His family settled in Mogadishu to escape the civil war after the colonial powers abandoned East Africa. Farah has received a good education and is fluent in five languages. Somalia had no written languages ​​until 1972. In the late 1960s Farah came into possession of an English typewriter and has been writing in English ever since, and the fact that he writes in English has meant that few Somalis have read his work . Nuruddin Farah switched to writing in English while attending university in India after the story's release in his native language, Somali. He has published a series of award-winning novels depicting the suffering of the Somali people. In persuasive words he writes about the dehumanizing effects of the dependence imposed on foreign aid. He also wrote plays and short stories in addition to novels. He received the prestigious Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1998, the Lettre Ulysses Prize in Berlin, the Kurt Tuchlosky Prize in Sweden in 1991, the Cavour Prize in Italy in 1994 and the perennial candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature. the books are full of colorful language and metaphors. He often incorporates Somali parables and proverbs to make his point. Most of his works concern the universal question of individual freedom. The aspects of Somali society – Islam, clan and kinship, family structure, gender regime, nation state and dictatorship – that impact the individual freedom of Farah's characters and are therefore central to what he and his characters attempt to resist, reimagine, and transform. He also discusses the Somali language and oral poetry as a backdrop for Farah's awareness and use of the transformative power of language. There is an argument that Farah's work presents a unique and tightly integrated fictional world, of which they carefully delineate the unifying dimensions of setting, plot, character, and ideology. This should silence the few narrow-minded Somalis who used to say that Farah, due to his exile, was somehow no longer Somali enough to draw real-life Somali characters. Its central concern for individual autonomy makes every aspect of identity and every social relationship (that between individuals, as well as that between each individual and the class, gender, family, clan, nation to which he belongs) profoundly politicians. At the heart of his work, the authors argue, is his characters' struggle to analyze, reimagine, transform and control their own identities. His characters occupy very different positions within patriarchal power structures. Thus the reader is introduced to the reflections of both male chauvinist and feminist men. The latter often take on unconventional gender roles and sometimes project themselves onto women's bodies or voices. The themes that dominate the narratives are narratives: the claims of national, clan and personal identities; the place of women in African society; dictatorships and the fight for human rights and freedom. Nuruddin Farah's short stories - From a Crooked Rib, A Naked Needle, Maps and the trilogy including Sweet and Sour Milk, Sardines and Close Sesame - have become a metaphor for postcolonial Africa. There are three themes that dominate the narratives: the claims of the national clan and thepersonal identities; the place of women in African society; dictatorships and the fight for human rights and freedom. What is remarkable about his narratives is how they move effortlessly through four realms of being: the domestic, the clan, the national, and the international. What is important is the fact that all realms are interconnected. They are connected. Thus, for example, in Sweet and Sour Milk domestic patriarchy is a mirror image of national dictatorship; this is the domestic patriarch who insists that women and children know their place, evoked in the great patriarch of the nation as a whole who insists on unconditional obedience from all. The father who assumes that he has a God-given right to do whatever he wants with his wives and children reflects the father of the nation, who also acts as if he were God's representative on earth. The oppression of women at home is linked to that of dictatorship at the national level. The question of who tells the story of the woman is thus linked to the question of who talks about the nation. Women's liberation is not something separable from the general issues of national liberation and human rights. For Nuruddin Farah, he is at the center of all these issues, and is probably the most important African writer in the feminist consciousness. This is not a consciousness he acquired in the course of his writing; has been at the center of his writing since his first work, From a Crooked Rib. Farah's stories captured this Cold War period in African politics, and in this he is entirely unique. So what he has to say, even though it is in Somalia, has echoes throughout the post-World War II global community. Rooted in the rhythms of life of the Somali people, his work nevertheless speaks of a continent and of the postcolonial world as a whole. Nuruddin Farah questions all oppressive actions against women, whether rooted in family, clan, nation, or religion and political systems. He is a Somali writer, an African writer, an important voice in postcolonial modernism, and he speaks to our time with very compelling prose. Farah's first novel, From a Crooked Rib, was published in 1970. The novel deals with the harsh treatment of women in Somali society. The book is told through the eyes of a young nomadic girl. Her strong feminist stance makes her writing unique among African male writers. Siad Barre. The novel presents a political rather than sociological study of the subordinate role of Somali women and the effects of urbanization during the 1950s, indicative of Farah's commitment to social issues. The central character of the novel is Ebla, a shepherd woman from the Ogaden who desires emancipation. from its subordinate role in Somali society. Ebla first flees her clan to the city of Belet Wene because she refuses to accept her arranged marriage to an old man named Giumaleh. Once she settles in her cousin Gheddi's house, however, Ebla learns that, to pay off some debts, he had secretly offered her his hand in marriage to a "mediator" friend. Ebla then escapes a second time by fleeing to Mogadishu with a civil servant named Awill, only to be enraged when she discovers that, during a government-sponsored trip to Italy, he has cheated on her. Ebla reasserts herself and takes revenge by secretly marrying Tiffo, a rich man from the city with whom she exchanges sexual favors in exchange for money. Ebla has learned to manipulate men through a type of prostitution in which she realizes that her body is a treasure. The subordinate nature of women in Somali society is clearly the dominant image of the book. Farah is particularly against the practice.