The comprehensive account of the development of African literature from its beginnings in oral tradition to its contemporary expression in the writings of Africans in various African and European languages provides insight, both broad and deep, into the Black intellect. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Brief History of Africa & Background of African Literature 1. The first book to be written by an indigenous author is thought to be an account of a former Igbo slave, entitled The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Olive Schreiner's novel, The Story of an African Farm (1883) was published. History Human beings are widely thought to have originated in Africa. In ancient times when writing was unknown, oral story-telling was used among the various ethnic groups, and much of the complex history, cultural and religious systems, and moral lessons were passed on down the generations by word of mouth. This website uses cookies to improve your experience. After independence, and also influenced by the Nigerian Civil War (1967–1970), the 1960s were a period of great literary ferment, and stories reflected the country’s historical relationship with the colonial powers and dealt with what life was like in post-colonial Nigeria. The History of Nigeria can be traced to settlers trading across the middle East and Africa as early as 1100 BC. It is generally considered to be the founding text of South African literature. From the first writers who gained international acclaim such as Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka and Ben Okri, today Nigeria has over 50 notable literary artists enjoying some phenomenal success. [4], Chinua Achebe was awarded the Man Booker International prize in recognition of his entire career as a novelist and author in 2007. [5], A list of "100 Most Influential Nigerian Writers Under 40 (Year 2016)" was published on 28 December 2016 on the Nigerian Writers Awards website. Other finalists for the prize included Ian McEwan and Salman Rushdie. The sub-genres of Drama include the Comedy, Tragedy, Tragicomedy, Farce, Melodrama, Musical Comedy and closet comedy. "The History of Christianity in Nigeria: A Bibliography of Secondary Literature," Working Papers in African Studies 269 (2017): 1-46. Click Get Books and find your favorite books in the online library. Soyinka was awarded the prize for writing "...in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence". 8. Dima Hurlbut IntroductionAs long as scholars have been writing about the history of Nigeria, they have been writing about Christianity. Nigerian literature is known throughout the world. Northern Nigerian written literature can be divided into 4 main periods. Igbo Literary Origins 3. 1. The term “drama” has its roots in the […] Stories were written by authors who had experienced the struggle for independence and were aware of the problems of building an independent nation where a lot of different ethnic groups had been yoked together by a self-seeking colonial power. Their books grace the shelves of bookshops the world over and many are respected international prize-winners, and the sheer volume of Nigerian literature published far exceeds that of any other African country. It was perhaps journalist Helon Habila who ushered in the new era of contemporary Nigerian writing when he won the 2001 Caine Prize for African Writing for his poetry and the 2003 Commonwealth Writers’ Best First Novel Prize for Waiting for an Angel. As Chinua Achebe said in a 1994 interview, “If you don’t like someone’s story, write your own.”, by Modern African literature is the natural inheritor of traditional African literature and though The book is often considered the seminal work of modern African literature and received accolades from author Dylan Thomas as well as other Western intellectual figures of the time. [6], Some of the known authors and some of their works, "The changing face of Nigerian literature", "Letter From Uthman Bin Idris, The Sultan Of Borno To Barquq, The Mamluk Sultan Of Egypt", "100 Most Influential Nigerian Writers Under 40", Things Come Together: A Journey through Literary Lagos, "A Wave of New Fiction From Nigeria, as Young Writers Experiment With New Genres", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nigerian_literature&oldid=1010002954, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. nigeriahow Perhaps his most important book was A Month and a Day: A Detention Diary (written when he was imprisoned), which promotes the idealism that all ethnic groups in Nigeria must be allowed to shape their destiny and control their resources. Soyinka, a Yoruba native speaker writing mainly in English, received the 1986 Nobel Prize in literature, becoming the first African Literature Nobel Prize winner. Even then Roscoe devotes only 11 pages to describing works (primarily folklore) of several Nigerian authors, and according to Schmidt (1981, p. 3), "makes a few unsupported assertions about chil dren's literature." PHOTOS: These Photos Of Bobrisky Without Makeup Will Leave You Speechless!! March 28, 2018, 4:23 pm. The languages used by authors in Nigeria are based in part on geography, with authors in the northern part of the country writing in Hausa. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986, the first African to do so (the next was Egyptian Naguib Mahfouz in 1988). Ken Saro-Wiwa was an author and playwright, environmental activist, and another outspoken critic of the Nigerian government, which he viewed as reluctant to enforce environmental regulations on the foreign petroleum companies operating in the Niger Delta; his activities resulted in him being executed during Abacha’s reign in 1995. Perhaps the most famous of these was Amos Tutuola’s fantastic magical Yoruba tale, The Palm-Wine Drinkard, which was published in 1952, written in English and distributed in Europe. Professor Dathorne examines the literature of Africans as spoken or written in their local languages and in Latin, French, Portuguese, and English. Though African Literature seems awfully young to the uninformed masses, it actually stretches way back into ancient history. Create free account to access unlimited books, fast download and ads free! These included renowned Nigerian author Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, first published in 1958 and re-published by Heinemann in 1962 (Achebe was also the West Africa editor for Heinemann until 1972). Outside influences arrived in the region as early as the 8th century when Arabs and Islam arrived in Africa, and by the 14th century written and spoken Arabic was in existence in what is now Northern Nigeria. Subsequently many other young new authors writing about modern Nigeria arrived on the scene, including Chris Abani, Tolu Ogunlesi, Eghosa Imasuen, Uche Peter Umez, Uwem Akpan, Biyi Bandele, Dulue Mbachu and Toni Kan, to name but a few. That period is what is known as the classical period of Nigerian literature. The letter was one of a diplomatic nature, it also contained poetry and an erudite understanding of Islamic law. These two influential writers, however, are far from the only prize-winners. The Rise of the African Novel is the first book to situate South African and African-language literature of the late 1880s through the early 1940s in relation to the literature of decolonization that spanned the 1950s through the 1980s, and the contemporary generation of established and emerging continental and diaspora African writers of international renown. Numerous ancient African civilisations settled in the region that is known today as Nigeria, such as the Kingdom of Nri, the Benin Empire, and the Oyo Empire. African literature possessing those qualities that define it as such. by African literature as a whole and Nigerian literature in particular was not birthed by the presence of the colonial masters, but rather, existed in myths, folktales, legends, songs and other various forms centuries before Europeans invaded the continent. Overall, it is a good book for your collection of Nigerian literary works. It is written in English, Igbo, Urhobo, Yoruba, Hausa, and the other languages of the country. From Voice to Text: Missionary Influence on the Development of Igbo Orthography and Written Igbo Literature 5. Additionally, Heinemann Educational Books, founded in 1962, published a series of textbooks in London for African universities for the teaching of literature, and then branched out to publishing novels in the Heinemann African Writers Series. This letter contains the earliest extant indigenous written poem produced in Nigeria. November 4, 2016, 4:47 pm, by After Habila won the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2001, shortlisted nominees were Adichie in 2002; Chika Unigwe in 2004; Sefi Atta in 2006; and most recently, in July 2013, Topi Folarin, who won the coveted award with his short storyMiracle. The 1920s and 1930s saw worldwide economic crises which caused the price for those things produced in African countries—raw materials and cash crops—to drop sharply (remember that this is the period of the Great Depression and the events leading into it). Could have done more in terms of going into the history and culture of each group, or atleast the major ones. Western influences began affecting Nigerian literature as early as the eighth century AD when Arabic ideas and culture were introduced to Africa. The book is subtitled “Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, in a two-story white house, North,” and its main title is a racial epithet. In awarding the prize, Nadine Gordimer referred to Achebe as "the father of modern African literature". In this first installment of our special African Literature History Triology. The first is the 14 Kingdoms Period (10th-19th century), the second is the Sokoto period (19th-20th century), the 3rd is the Colonial Period (20th century), and the 4th is the Post Independence period (20th century to present). Islam reached Nigeria through the Borno Empire between (1068 AD) and Hausa States around (1385 AD) during the 11th … Notify me of follow-up comments by email. It was also the first influential slave autobiography, and fuelled the growing anti-slavery movement in Britain at the time. History, in African literatures, is not a term that applies simply to narratives that engage with the past: African literatures offer historians examples of the imagination in history and the imagination as history. OVERVIEW OF AFRICAN LITERATURE Page 1 A brief background and history of African literatures Africa has a long and complex literary history. Before the twentieth century, Africans wrote not just in Europe, but also on the African continent; they wrote not just in European languages, but in African languages; they wrote not just for European consumption, but for their own consumption; they wrote not just in northern … Whether you’re interested in learning more about slave narratives and their role in abolition or about the impact of the Harlem Renaissance on 20th-century literary forms, you should be sure to explore the works of these writers across the decades. See also African languages; South African literature. October 11, 2019, 2:17 pm, by In a nut-shell, the writer must share values and Authors and poets during this period include Kole Omotoso, Bode Sowande, Femi Osofisan and Niyi Osundare, as well as that stalwart critic of the regime, Wole Soyinka. Of crucial importance is the environment from which the African literature (in whatever language) emanated. HISTORY OF DRAMA IN NIGERIA Drama is a genre of literature in which an action is imitated in dialogue or pantomime by actors, this dialogue is broken into scenes or acts. HOMINIDAE CLADE 25 to 15 million years ago HOMINIDS 8 million years ago HOMO SAPIENS 500,000 to 300,000 years ago 3. [1] Nigerian authors have won numerous accolades, including the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Man Booker. Meet Ibra Ake, The Only Nigerian To Win At 2019 Grammys, 2019 Grammys: Nigerian-American Producer Wins Award For ‘This Is America’ Music Video, Why I Didn’t Perform At The Grammys – Seun Kuti, 5 Productivity Apps For University Students, Read the Story of Candido Da Rocha, Nigeria’s First Millionaire Who Sends His Clothes to Britain for Laundry, Abiy Ahmed Has Won The Nobel Peace Prize: But Big Challenges Still Await Ethiopia, In Nigeria, Dreadlocks Are Entangled With Beliefs About Danger. From the only prize-winners you wish ) 4 the first Black African to win the prize. 28, 2018, 4:23 pm analyze and understand how you use this website in... `` the father of modern African literature into the canon of global literature life with and. The Development of Igbo Orthography and written Igbo literature 5 Beautiful Girls – Guess the # StarsConnect,. Numerous accolades, including Ifowodo, Cole and Adichie, are far from the only.... 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