African literature

1. Rodylyn V. Velasquez
Submitted by:
AfricaAfro-Asian Literature
Prof. Ms. Sharon De Los Reyes
Submitted to:

2. Africa
• Came into the Western use through the Romans, who use the name “Africa Terra” the land of Afri.
• Afar - meaning dust.
• Afridi - tribe of northern Africa.
• Greek Aphrhike - without cold or Latin Africa - Sunny
• 2nd largest continent after asia
• 46 number of territories and countries
• Suez Canal, Gulf of Suez and Red Sea - separates the Africa from Asia
• Straight of Gibraltor and Mediterranean Sea - Separates Africa from Europe.
• Women doesn't have the right
• can speak english very well.
• has ivory and gold
• they use drums to calll the spirits

3. Atlantic ocean
• 2nd largest of the world's oceans with a total area of about 106,460,000 square kilometres (41,100,000 sq
mi). It covers approximately 20 percent of the Earth's surface and about 29 percent of its water surface
area. It separates the "Old World" from the "New World".
• Occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Eurasia and Africa to the east, and the Americas
to the west. As one component of the interconnected global ocean, it is connected in the north to the Arctic Ocean, to the
Pacific Ocean in the southwest, the Indian Ocean in the southeast, and the Southern Ocean in the south
• The Equatorial Counter Current subdivides it into the North Atlantic Ocean and South Atlantic Ocean at about 8°N.
• Scientific explorations of the Atlantic include the Challenger expedition, the German Meteor expedition,
Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and the United States Navy Hydrographic
Office.

4. Indian Ocean
• 3rd largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering 70,560,000 km2 (27,240,000 sq mi) (approximately
20% of the water on the Earth's surface).
• It is bounded by Asia on the north, on the west by Africa, on the east by Australia, and on the south by
the Southern Ocean or, depending on definition, by Antarctica. It is named after the country of India.
• Known as Ratnākara (Sanskrit: रत्नाकर), "the mine of gems" in ancient Sanskrit literature, and as
Hind Mahāsāgar (Hindi: हिन्द मिासागर), "the great Indian sea", in Hindi.

5. 5 Major Language
1. Afro Asiatic
2. Click
3. Niger Congo
4. Sudanic
5. Austronesian

6. Religion
• 1st continent, outside ofAsia that Islamspread into in the early 7th century.
• Almost one-third of the world's Muslim population resides in the continent.
• Most Muslims in Africa are Sunni; the complexity of Islam in Africa is revealed in the various
schools of thought, traditions, and voices in many African countries.
• African Islam is not static and is constantly being reshaped by prevalent social, economic, and
political conditions. Generally Islam in Africa often adapted to African cultural contexts and belief
systems forming Africa's own orthodoxies.
• Estimated in 2002 that Muslims constitute 48% of the population of Africa. Islam has a large
presence in North Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Swahili Coast, and much of West Africa, with
minority but significant immigrant populations in South Africa. However, Islam has encountered
criticism and resistance in several nations of Sub-Saharan Africa.

7. African Literature
• Is literature of or from Africa and includes oral literature (or "orature", in the term coined by Ugandan scholar Pio Zirimu).
• As George Joseph notes in his chapter on African literature in Understanding Contemporary Africa, whereas European views of literature often stressed a separation of art
and content, African awareness is inclusive:
• "Literature" can be the part of asian also imply an artistic use of words for the sake of art alone.
• Africans do not radically separate art from teaching. Rather than write or sing for beauty in itself, African writers, taking their cue from oral literature, use beauty to help
communicate important truth's and information to society. Indeed, an object is considered beautiful because of the truths it reveals and the communities it helps to build.
Prose - it is a mythological or historical written or spoken language.
Call and Response - it is a sponteneous verbal and non verbal interaction between the speaker and the listener.
Ethiopia Unbounded - 1st African Novel written in english
Epic of Dinga - best known work in his tradition (old Ghana Empire)
Trickster story - one of the traditional african folktale.

8. Oral literature
• (or orature) may be in prose or verse. The prose is often mythological or historical and can include tales
of the trickster character. Storytellers in Africa sometimes use call-and-response techniques to tell their
stories. Poetry, often sung, includes: narrative epic, occupational verse, ritual verse, praise poemsrulers
and other prominent people. Praise singers, bards sometimes known as "griots", tell their stories with
music. Also recited, often sung, are love songs, work songs, children's songs, along with epigrams,
proverbs and riddles. A revised edition of Ruth Finnegan's classic book Oral Literature in Africa Oral
Literature in Africa was released by the Cambridge-based Open Book Publishers in September 2012.

9. Precolonial literature
Oral literature of west Africa includes the "Epic of Sundiata" composed in medieval Mali, and the older "Epic of Dinga" from the old Ghana Empire. In Ethiopia, there is a
substantial literature written in Ge'ez going back at least to the fourth century AD; the best-known work in this tradition is the Kebra Negast, or "Book of Kings." One
popular form of traditional African folktale is the "trickster" story, in which a small animal uses its wits to survive encounters with larger creatures. Examples of animal
tricksters include Anansi, a spider in the folklore of the Ashanti people of Ghana; Ijàpá, a tortoise in Yoruba folklore of Nigeria; and Sungura, a hare found in central and
East African folklore. Other works in written form are abundant, namely in north Africa, the Sahel regions of west Africa and on the Swahili coast. From Timbuktu alone,
there are an estimated 300,000 or more manuscripts tucked away in various libraries and private collections, mostly written in Arabic but some in the native languages
(namely Fula and Songhai). Many were written at the famous University of Timbuktu. The material covers a wide array of topics, including astronomy, poetry, law, history,
faith, politics, and philosophy. Swahili literature similarly, draws inspiration from Islamic teachings but developed under indigenous circumstances. One of the most
renowned and earliest pieces of Swahili literature being Utendi wa Tambuka or "The Story of Tambuka".
In Islamic times, North Africans such as ibn Khaldun attained great distinction within Arabic literature. Medieval north Africa boasted universities such as those of Fes
and Cairo, with copious amounts of literature to supplement them.

10. African Poets
• Black Hemit -The Black Hermit was the first play by the Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa
Thiongʼo, and the first published East African play in English. The travelling theatre of
Makerere College were the first to produce the play, putting it on in honour of Ugandan
independence at the Ugandan National Theatre in Kampala in November 1962. The play
was published in a small edition by Makerere University Press in 1963, and republished in
Heinemann's African Writers Series in 1968.

11. African Authors
Authors such as Chinua Achebe, Nadine Gordimer and recently Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie have set the stage for African
authors to be noticed globally. According to blogger Minna Salami, interconnectivity and technology has increased access to
African writers, especially to those who have been seeking to share alternative and unique stories. The world has noticed that
Africa has its own stories to tell; stories rooted in the culture of the continent from the perspective of people from the
continent. Here is a list of contemporary African authors who are making a mark in the literature world.

12. Ali A. Mazuri
• 24 February 1933 – 12 October 2014 was an academic professor, and political writer on African and Islamic studies and
North-South relations. He was born in Mombasa, Kenya. His positions included Director of the Institute of Global
Cultural Studies at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York, and Director of the Center for Afro-American
and African Studies at the University of Michigan. He is also famous for producing the television documentary series
The Africans: A Triple Heritage.

13. Ngugi Wa Thiong `o
Born 5 January 1938, is a Kenyan writer, formerly working in English and now working in Gikuyu. His work includes novels, plays, SHORT stories, and
essays, ranging from literary and social criticism to children's literature. He is the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri.
In 1977, embarked upon a novel form of theatre in his native Kenya that sought to liberate the theatrical process from what he held to be "the general
bourgeois education system", by encouraging spontaneity and audience participation in the performances.
Subsequently imprisoned for over a year. Adopted as an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience, the artist was released from prison, and fled Kenya.
In the United States, he taught at Yale University for some years, and has since also taught at New York University, with a dual professorship in
Comparative Literature and Performance Studies, and at the University of California, Irvine. Ngũgĩ has frequently been regarded as a likely candidate for the
Nobel Prize in Literature. His son is the author Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ.

14. Nadine Gordimer
• Nadine Gordimer (20 November 1923 – 13 July 2014) was a South African writer, political activist and
recipient of the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature. She was recognized as a woman "who through her
magnificent epic writing has – in the words of Alfred Nobel – been of very great benefit to humanity".
• Gordimer's writing dealt with moral and racial issues, particularly apartheid in South Africa. Under that
regime, works such as Burger's Daughter and July's People were banned. She was active in the anti-
apartheid movement, joining the African National Congress during the days when the organization was
banned, and gave Nelson Mandela advice on his famous 1964 defence speech at the trial which led to his
conviction for life. She was also active in HIV/AIDS causes.

15. Herbert Isaac Ernest Dhlomo
1903, Siyamu/Pietermaritzburg (Natal) 20 October 1956, Durban) is one of the major founding figures of
South African literature and perhaps the first prolific African creative writer in English. His elder brother was
the famous artist R. R. R. Dhlomo, and the great Zulu composer, R. T. Caluza, is a near relative. His father,
Ezra, was a friend of Bambatha, who led the Bambatha rebellion. Dhlomo himself held many jobs during his
SHORT life, but always regarded his literary production as his major achievement:

16. Joseph Ephraim Casely Hayford
Joseph Ephraim Casely Hayford, MBE, or Ekra-Agiman (29
September 1866 – 11 August 1930) was a Ghanaian
journalist, editor, author, lawyer, educator, and politician
who supported pan-African nationalism.

17. Chinua Achebe
• Chinua Achebe is a Nigerian novelist and author of Things Fall Apart, a work that in
part led to his being called the "patriarch of the African novel."
• Born in Nigeria in 1930, Chinua Achebe attended the University of Ibadan. In 1958, his
groundbreaking novel Things Fall Apart was published. It went on to sell more than 12
million copies and been translated into more than 50 languages. Achebe later served as
the David and Marianna Fisher University professor and professor of Africana Studies
at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. He died on March 21, 2013, at age
82, in Boston, Massachusetts.

18. Things Fall Apart by: Chinua Achebe
is about the tragic fall of the protagonist, Okonkwo, and the Igbo
culture. Okonkwo is a respected and influencial leader within the
Igbo community of Umuofia in eastern Nigeria.

19. Characters of the Things Fall Apart
 OKONKWO - protagonist , respected, and influencial, dont love his famiily.
 UNOKA - father of okonkwo, lazy and wasteful.
 IKEMEFUNA - adopted son and killed by okonkwo because ikemefuna is a peace offering to avoid war.
 NWOYE - son of okonkwo
 OJIUGO - youngest wife
 EKWEFI - second wife
 OGBUEFI EZEUDER - oldest man in the village
 OBIERKA - bestfriend of okonkwo
 EZINMA - daughter of okonkwo, a charming and fine lady
 EFU LEFU - wear and worthless man, (fisrt recruit of the missionary)
 MR. BROWN - white missionary who comes to umuofia
 REVEREN JAMES SMITH - replace mr. Brown, realist and strict.
 UMUOFIA - town of okonkwo
 MBANTA - okonkwo mothers village

20. references
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Ocean
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Africa
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afroasiatic_languages
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadine_Gordimer
• https://images.rambler.ru/search?query=Herbert%20Isaac%20Ernest%20Dhlomo
• https://images.rambler.ru/search?query=things%20fall%20apart