A report outline in African Literature

I. GEOGRAPHIC AND TOPOGRAPHIC PROFILE OF AFRICA

A. Location
1. Africa is the world’s second largest continent with an area of 30, 368, 609 km2 including adjacent islands. Most of its island is plateau.
2. The continent of Africa is centrally located on the earth’s surface and lies between the Atlantic Ocean in the West and the Indian Ocean in the East.
3. Africa has five distinct regions. The main regions are North Africa, West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa and South Africa.
B. Topography
1. Africa is the most tropical of all the continents. The temperature in the most part of Africa are generally arm or hot..
2. The continent of Africa is divided into four major climate zones. These are Tropical Wet, tropical Wet and Dry, desert, and moderate Mediterranean climate.
C. Landforms
1. The Plateaus of Africa lie at different elevation. The highest Plateaus are in the East and North.
2. The Great Rift Valley- a series of mountains and valley that formed a million years ago. The Rift is a split in the African continent.
3. Sahara Desert – the largest desert in the world extending across Northern Africa from the Atlantic to the Red Sea.

D. Rivers
1. The Nile River – flowing from 4,160 miles (6,695 km) northward across the Africa. The Nile River is the longest river in the world.
2. The Zaire (Zah EER) or Congo River that drains a huge area in Central Africa. This is the second great river of the continent.
3. Niger River – a river that rises in the West African nations of Sierra Leone and Guinea. It irrigates much of Western Africa before entrying into the Atlantic Ocean.
4. The Zambezi River found in Southern Africa that flows into the Indian Ocean.
II. ECONOMIC PROFILE

1. Farming is the common source of their earnings or income.
2. Rich in terms of natural resources.
3. Livestock Raising is an important element of African agriculture.
4. Mining and manufacturing is also a source of income.
5. Forestry and fishing are also prominent.
Richest country in Africa
-Egypt
Having 467,600 dollars GDP
Poorest country in Africa
-Democratic Republic of Congo
Having 394.25 dollars GDP
III. SOCIO-CULTURAL PROFILE

A. Language
1. Afro-Asiatic- it has 200 languages which are used in Northern Africa.
2. Nilo-Saharian- it has approximately 140 languages from Central and Eastern Africa.
3. Khoisan- it has 30 languages in Southern Africa particularly on its Western part.
B. Traditions
1. African Marriage Beliefs/Principles
Marriage is sacred in Africa and beyond because in Africa and beyond, because it solidifies relationships that enrich communities and nations by bringing forth new life and new hope.
Marriage is the only known incubator for the raising of balanced socially functional children. The ideal set up for a child to be raised into full functionality in Africa is as a contributor to civilization.
Lack of Marriage is the death of a nation and people. Communities that fail to recognize marriage become decadent and destructive to social, economic, and health issues.
2. Polygamy- a man can have many wives as long as he can support them and the wives share the responsibilities at home.
3. Lobola- it is the payment of gift that is given to the family of the bride.

4. Female Circumcision
Genital cutting is widespread within some African cultures and ethnic groups.
It is an initiation before they are accepted as adults in the community.
C. Religions
1. Islam- Most people in the 14 independent countries in North Africa and East Africa are Muslims. Muslims pray to Allah and his prophet Muhammad. They have their holy book called Koran.
2. Christianity- is the dominant religion in Southern Africa.
3. Ancient religions- some African people chose to follow ancient religions and believe tat natural spirits and ancestors affect everyday life.
D. Social Classes
1. Mande Caste System
a. Horon (nobles/freeborn)- this is the highest class in the caste system hierarchy. It includes farmers, fishermen, warriors and animal breeders.
b. Jonow (slave caste)- this is the lowest class in the system. It includes people whose ancestors were enslaved by other Africans during tribal wars .
IV. POLITICAL PROFILE

A. Types of Government in Africa
1. Monarchy- Some of the countries in Africa like Swaziland and Lesotho have this kind of government.
2. Democracy- Many African nations have nominal democratic systems with leaders elected by popular votes. It is characterized by manipulation of law, frequent constitutional changes or intimidation of political opponents.
3. Authoritarian- There are still countries in Africa whose authority can hardly be described as responsible to people.

V. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF AFRICAN LITERATURE

1. Early literature
a. The earliest African literature can be traced in Egyptian texts that are written on papyrus.
b. Egyptian writing systems are classified as hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic. Hieroglyphic writing is composed of logographic and alphabetic elements that are used by the ancient Egyptians.
c. Ancient Egyptian literature consists of burial texts to accompany their dead, creation myths, and Egyptian gods.
d. The earliest work is the Egyptian Book of the Dead written down in the Papyrus of Ani in approximately 1250 BC. The first written account on creation was known as the “Memphite Declaration of Deities.”
e. Egyptian writing was believed to have been invented by the god Tehuti, or Thoth, and as this god was thought to be a form of the mind and intellect and wisdom of the God who created the heavens and the earth, the hieroglyphs were held to be holy.
f. Other early African literary works were influenced by Islamic teachings. The first sub-Saharan literature known as the History of Kilwa Kisiwani (1520) was written in Arabic language.

2. Oral literature
a. African oral literature was called “orature”
b. Orature is classified as prose or poetry. Famous proses are either as mythological or historical narrative while poetries include folk songs, proverbs, riddles and epigrams.
c. Oral arts are considered as "art's for life's sake" contrary to Europeans’ “art’s for art’s sake”
d. West African traveling performers, known as griots or jeli, kept the oral tradition alive up to this period.

3. Pre-colonial literature
a. The most notable literary piece during this period was the Kebra Negast, or "Book of Kings."
b. Two of the most famous epics, the "Epic of Sundiata" (Medieval Mali) and "Epic of Dinga" (Ghana) had been passed orally beginning from the 4th century AD.
c. A popular form of traditional African folktale is the "trickster" story.
These are stories of small animals that use its wits to survive encounters with larger creatures.
d. Other works in written form are abundant, namely in North Africa, the Sahel regions of West Africa and on the Swahili coast.
e. Swahili literature, draws inspiration from Islamic teachings but developed under indigenous circumstances. One of the most renowned and earliest pieces of Swahili literature is Utendi wa Tambuka or "The Story of Tambuka" (1728)

4. Colonial African literature
a. With the period of Colonization, African oral traditions and written works came under a serious outside threat. Europeans, who justified themselves to be Christians, tried to destroy the "pagan" and "primitive" culture of the Africans, to make them more pliable slaves.
b. In 1789, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustava Vassa was the first slave narrative to be published
c. Swahili poetry threw off the dominating influence of Islam and reverted back to native Bantu forms. One exemplar of this was Utendi wa Inkishafi (Soul's Awakening), a poem detailing the vanity of earthly life.
d. The Europeans, by bringing journalism and government schools to Africa, helped to further develop of literature. Local newspapers abounded, and they featured sections of local African poetry and short stories.
e. While originally these fell close to the European form, slowly they broke away and became more and more African in nature. One of these writers was Oliver Schreiner, whose novel Story of an African Farm (1883) is considered the first African classic analysis of racial and sexual issues.
f. Other notable writers, such as Samuel Mqhayi and Thomas Mofolo began portraying Africans as complex human characters
g. Joseph Ephraim Casely Hayford (also known as Ekra-Agiman) of the Gold Coast (now Ghana) published the first African novel written in English, Ethiopia Unbound: Studies in Race Emancipation (1911).
h. Emerging from Paris in the 1920s and 1930s, the Negritude movement established itself as one of the premiere literary movements of its time. It was a French-speaking African search for identity, which took them back to their roots in Africa. Themes written by this movement were about liberation and independence.
i. In 1948, African literature came to the forefront with Alan Paton's publishing of Cry the Beloved Country. However, this book was a somewhat paternalistic and sentimental portrayal of Africa. Another African writer, Fraz Fanon, a psychiatrist, became famous in 1967 through a powerful analysis of racism from the African viewpoint - Black Skin, White Masks. Camara Laye explored the deep psychological ramification of being African in his masterpiece, The Dark Child (1953), and African satire is popularized by Mongo Beti and Ferdinand Oyono.
j. In 1962, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o of Kenya wrote the first East African drama, The Black Hermit, a cautionary tale about "tribalism" (racism between African tribes).
k. Chinua Achebe, a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor ad critic, is known for his first novel and magnum opus, Things Fall Apart (1958). It is, to date, the most widely read book in modern Africa

5. Post-colonial African literature
a. African nations gained their independence in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
b. Achebe opened the door for many other African literati to attain international recognition. East Africans produce important autobiographical works, such as Kenyans Josiah Kariuki’s Mau Mau Detainee (1963), and R. Mugo Gatheru’s Child of Two Worlds (1964)
c. Themes during this period include conflicts between:
1. Africa's past and present
2. Tradition and modernity
3. Indigenous and foreign
4. Individualism and community
5. Socialism and capitalism
6. Development and self-reliance
7. Africanity and humanity
d. Chinua Achebe helped reunite African Literature as a whole by publishing in 1985 African Short Stories, a collection of African short stories from all over the continent.
e. Women’s voices was heard. Writers such as Flora Nwapa gave the feminine African perspective on colonization and other African issues.

VI. FAMOUS LITERARY AUTHORS

1. Chinua Achebe
a. Most influential writer to have come out of Africa since the late 1950’s. He is one of the most important African writers and ha done much to promote writing in English
b. The Father of the African novel in English.
c. He believes that a writer should be at the head of the big social and political issues of contemporary Africa
d. Many great English novelists have influenced him but Achebe transcends these influences and writes with an authentic African consciousness.
2. Olaudah Equiano

a. Also known as Gustavus Vassa
b. He was kidnapped as a child from the Benin region of Nigeria and shipped to the US as a slave
c. After he gained his freedom, he became a seaman and travelled the world including the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, the Atlantic, and the Arctic
d. He settled in London where he became involved in efforts to abolish slave trade. This led him to write his autobiography
3. Desmond Tutu
a. He trained for the Anglican Priesthood
b. After serving as a curate in local South African parishes, he travelled to England, where he became the associate director of the Theological Education Fund.
c. In 1975, he returned to South Africa as the Anglican dean of Johannesburg. There he led the anti-apartheid movement as the first Black secretary of the Interdominational South African Council of Churches
d. In 1984, he receive the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature
4. Nadine Gordimer
a. South African author who was the daughter of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants
b. She wrote ten novels and nine short story collections which reflect politics like an unforgiving mirror held up to the South African government

5. Wole Soyinka
a. Soyinka spent his 6 years in England, as a dramaturgist at the Royal Court theatre in London (1958-1959)
b. In 1960, he was awarded a Rockefeller bursary
c. He returned to Nigeria to study African drama and he became a teacher of drama and literature at various universities in Ibadan
d. During the civil war in Nigeria, Soyinka appealed in an article for ceasefire. For this, he was arrested in 1967, accused of conspiring with Biafra rebels.
e. He was held as a political prisoner for 22 months until 1969
6. James Ngugi
a. Kenya’s best known writer
b. He formulated the proposal on the “Abolition of the English Department”, which led to the opening of the Department of African Literature and Languages in African Universities
7. Albert Camus
a. He was a French-Algerian who studied at the University of Algiers
b. Nobel prize winning author, journalist and philosopher
8. Ben Okri
a. He is a Nigerian novelist born in 1959 in Minna, Northern Nigeria.
b. Much of his early works explore the political violence that he witnessed during the civil war in Nigeria
c. In 1991, he was awarded the Booker Prize for Fiction for his novel, “The Famished Road”
9. Nawal-El-Saadawi
a. She is an Egyptian feminist writer, activist and physician
b. She has written many books on subject of women depicting the practice of genital mutilation in her society
c. One of her most famous work, “Woman at Point Zero”, was inspired by a detainee she encountered when she was imprisoned in 1981.
10. John Maxwell Coetzee
a. He is a known novelist and literary critic in South Africa who was a winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003
b. His novel, Life & Times of Michael K, won the Booker Prize in 1983

VII. FAMOUS LITERARY WORKS

1. Things Fall Apart (1958)
a. First novel of Chinua Achebe which is considered to be a literary classic and is widely read all over the world. The book has been translated into many languages.
b. The novel reveals colonialism as a traumatic experience common to all former African colonial territories
2. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789)
a. It was written by Equiano himself under the pseudonym, Gustavus Gassa.
b. The book became a vehicle to further the slavery cause

3. My Vision for South Africa (1979)
a. The book demonstrates Tutu’s firm belief in the teachings of the Anglican church as well as his optimism in the possibilities for positive political change in South Africa
4. Which New Era Would That Be? (1956)
a. This fiction written by Nadine Gordimer provides a startling insight into the phenomenon of apartheid in South Africa
b. It presents the concept of racial thoughts with regards to alienation
c. The story seeks to break almost every possible stereotype that exists concerning Black people
5. A Dance of the Forests (1963)
a. A commemoration of Nigeria’s independence
b. This play written by Wole Soyinka shows how a playwright may interpret traditional material and contemporary political events for his own artistic purpose
6. Petals of Blood (1977)
a. It is the fourth novel of James Ngugi, which was launched in Nairobi and had simultaneous publication in London.
b. Newspaper reviews hailed the Novel with such comments such as “a literary bombshell” and “the most hard-hitting novel criticizing contemporary Kenyan society written since independence”.
7. The Adulterous Woman (1957)
a. It is the first short story published in the volume, Exile and the Kingdom by Albert Camus
8. The Famished Road (1991)
a. It is a Booker Prize winning novel of Nigerian Author, Ben Okri
b. The novel is about the struggles of a spirit-child who chose to have his mortal life that to live in the world of spirits
9. Woman at Point Zero (1975)
a. A novel written by the Egyptian feminist and physician Nawal-El-Saadawi
b. It is based on the struggles of a prisoner named Firdaus whom Saadawi encountered in jail. It narrates her problems being a high-class prostitute.
10. The Life and Times of Michael K (1983)
a. It is a novel written by J.M Coetzee which considers the inhumanity of war, the state, and the state of war while simultaneously peering into the toll exacted upon the littlest individuals caught in the midst of such things

VIII. REFERENCES http:// ancienthistory.about.com/od/creationafterlife/g/051410.MemphiteTheology.html http://abagond.wordpress .com/2011/08/16/frants-fanon-black-skin-white http://novelguide.com/crythebelovedcountry http://andrewblackman.net/2010/11/the-dark-child http:// thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Thingsfallapart http://integralpsychosis.wordpress.com/2009/01/28 http://africanhistory.about.com www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa www.uiowa.edu/africart/history www.africa.upenn.edu Ms. Cecile Vizcaya
Instructor