Chaucer

The storytelling experience is always ritual, always a rite of passage; one relives the past and, by so doing, comes to insight about present life. Myth is both a story and a fundamental structural device used by storytellers. As a story, it reveals change at the beginning of time, with gods as the central characters.

Geoffrey Chaucer

African literature has origins dating back thousands of years to Ancient Egypt and hieroglyphs, or writing which uses pictures to represent words. Sub-Saharan Africa developed a written literature during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

African literature is not important only because of its relevant setting and relatable storylines. It also increases our social consciousness, and raises awareness of social, political, and economic crises that the African continent is facing.

African Literature Books

• Things Fall Apart (The African Trilogy, #1) Chinua Achebe.
• Half of a Yellow Sun (Hardcover) Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
• Americanah (Hardcover)
• Purple Hibiscus (Paperback)
• Homegoing (Hardcover)
• The Thing Around Your Neck (Hardcover)
• So Long a Letter (Paperback)
• Disgrace (Paperback)

Language of the African novel is highly enriched with some aspects of oral literature such as songs, proverbs and narratives. The other aspect which makes African novel unique from other novels is characterization. In the novel, characterization is achieved by reporting the thoughts of the characters.

Religion: Most literary works and stories often show themes like divine intervention, colonialism and religion, conflicts of faith, religion and indigenous culture, the mission problematique, religious and secular rituals and sometimes the theological perspectives of the ones writing it.

The Top 10 Contemporary African Writers You Should Know

• Chinua Achebe. One of the world’s most widely recognized and praised writers, Chinua Achebe wrote some of the most extraordinary works of the 20th century.
• Ayi Kwei Armah.
• Aminatta Forna.
• Nadine Gordimer.
• Alain Mabanckou.
• Ben Okri.

The series has ensured an international voice to major African writers—including Chinua Achebe, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Steve Biko, Ama Ata Aidoo, Nadine Gordimer, Buchi Emecheta, and Okot p’Bitek.

25 African Women Writers You Should Read

• Ahdaf Soueif.
• Aminatta Forna.
• Chibundu Onuzo.
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
• Helen Oyeyemi.
• Imbolo Mbue.
• Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi.
• Kopano Matlwa.

Phillis Wheatley, the First African American Published Book of Poetry. Phillis Wheatley was only seven or eight years old when she was captured and taken from her home in West Africa. A slave ship brought her to Boston in 1761.

5 female African authors you should know

• Ama Ata Aidoo. Aidoo is a celebrated Ghanaian author whose notable works include Changes: A Love Story, Our Sister Kill Joy and The Girl Who Can and Other Stories.
• Nnedi Okorafor. Photo credit: Cheetah Witch/Wikimedia Commons.
• Buchi Emecheta OBE.
• Maaza Mengiste.
• Okwiri Oduor.

Answer. African feminism is the type of feminism that is concerned to the problems specifically faced by the women of African origin. This included women living within the African continent, African Americans are not included. The main purpose of these writings is to highlight issues of women from the specific origin.

Naomi Nkealah writes that African feminism “strives to create a new, liberal, productive and self-reliant African woman within the heterogeneous cultures of Africa. Feminisms in Africa, ultimately, aim at modifying culture as it affects women in different societies.”

The conditions giving rise to feminism in Africa include the history of ancient civilizations as well as colonial rule and imperialism, women’s involvement in nationalist struggles, and contemporary social movements.

Yes, feminism is un-African The major shift in the status of African women, however, came as a consequence of the European attack on Africa, which resulted in slavery and colonialism. Modern feminism exists in African spaces as a way to deepen contradictions that were born from this attack.

Early 20th-Century African Feminist Roots. Modern African feminism was forged in the ferment of nationalism and resistance to empire, when women threw their energy into nationalist movements that swept across the continent to liberate Egypt, Algeria, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, Guinea-Conakry, and many other nations.

Generally, Western feminists disagree with the view that men are equally oppressed under patriarchy, while African feminists agree that men are similarly oppressed and that gender equality means oppression of neither gender.

In 1848, Mott and Stanton held a woman’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York, where a declaration of independence for women was drafted. Anthony to take up the cause of women’s rights. In December 1851, Sojourner Truth contributed to the feminist movement when she spoke at the Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio.

The first wave of feminism took place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, emerging out of an environment of urban industrialism and liberal, socialist politics. The goal of this wave was to open up opportunities for women, with a focus on suffrage.