African Literary Works Research Articles

‘Wonder Women\': Towards a Feminization of Heroism in the African Fiction: A Study of the Heroines in Buchi Emecheta's <i>Second Class Citizen</i> and Sembene Ousmane's <i>God's Bits of Wood</i>

Feminism, especially the womanist brand, has been a very popular critical tool that most critics, men and women alike, have employed in their critical appraisal of African literary works. This is decidedly a very fertile area of contemporary scholarship. The emergence of this critical methodology in the African context stems from the perceived relegation of African women to the background, whether at the home front or in the domain of governance in the larger society. Essentially, feminism preaches equality of the sexes and frowns at the domination of women by men. Paradoxically, African literary works, being products and reflections of the stresses and tensions of the African society, have replicated this scenario. African literature, consequently, is male-dominated. This has and is still engendering reactions from concerned female and male writers who are re-writing the history of the emergent literature, countering and challenging male chauvinism by presenting conscious, active, resilient and courageous female characters in their novels. It is this anti-male domination crusade that has given concreteness to the feminization of heroism in African fiction as exemplified, in this study, by Nigeria's Buchi Emecheta and Senegalese Ousmane Sembene, reflecting in the process, the singleness of purpose of female and male African writers in their collective fight against discrimination against women.LWATI: A Journal of Contemporary Research Vol. 5 2008: pp. 181-191

The ?Crisis of the Soul?: Psychoanalysis and African Literature

Occasional forays notwithstanding, psychoanalysis and African literature have long maintained a studious, if not wary, distance from each other. As one might expect, cost to both has been high: for psychoanalysis, opportunity to actually establish its claims to providing a universal hermeneutics, especially by submitting key concepts (the subject, unconscious, and so forth) and theoretical paradigms (Freud, Jung, Stein, Lacan, etc.) to rigorous scrutiny in context of African literary works of art; for African literature, opportunity not only to use psychoanalytic criticism but also to undertake a rigorous critique of psychoanalytic theories of subject, sexuality and identity. We can take a measure of distance between psychoanalysis and African literature by citing two cases where critical dialogue would have been beneficial to both. first case occurs in Jacques Lacan's The Topic of Imaginary (1954). Lacan opens section of his seminar dealing with the symbolic situation of Oedipus by teasing his audience with prospect of a lecture he might deliver on primitive mythology. Observing that such myths are not inferior, he adds: When we study a mythology, for example one that might perhaps appear with respect to a Sudanese population, we discover that for them Oedipus complex is just a rather thin joke. It is a very tiny detail within an immense myth. In context of this Sudanese myth, he declares, Oedipus complex may so abridged an edition that in end it cannot always be used. This notwithstanding, Lacan reassures his audience: But no matter. Us [sic] analysts have been satisfied with it up to now (86). Perhaps Lacan is correct. Perhaps, too, he is wrong. Indeed, Lacan's reference to this Sudanese myth raises several questions. Why continue to make do with Oedipal schema when one could learn more from Sudanese myth? Rather than make do, might one not use this myth either to corroborate, repudiate, or illuminate distinction Lacan was making between the imaginary, symbolic and real? To what particular primitive Sudanese myth was he referring? Of what significance might its subsumption of Oedipus myth be to Lacan's theory of subject? Does it merely disclose its conceptual limits, or does it subvert theory altogether? It is tempting to let matter rest by reading Lacan's reference to Sudanese myth as just one more instance of Africanist discourse-others include Jung's panic attacks at prospect of going black and Freud's characterization

Editing Bosman's stories

This article looks back at the editing work that went into the fourteen‐volume Anniversary Edition of Herman Charles Bosman (1998–2005) and pays particular attention to the editing of Bosman's stories. It examines some of the problems that were encountered in arriving at ‘authoritative’ versions of the stories and argues that, ironically, it was Bosman himself who set in train the process that resulted in his classic Mafeking Road ending up with nearly 100 errors in it by the early 1990s. The article ends with a plea for greater rigour in the editing of South African literary works.

Discourse strategies in francophone African literary works

Abstract In multilingual contexts such as those found in Africa, ethnic conflicts have played a major role in human relations, and have often led to linguistic conflicts. The resulting situation has made it difficult to implement local languages as national and official languages. During colonisation, these linguistic problems were usually solved by adopting European languages as vehicles of communication among linguistically and culturally diverse peoples. In this paper, it will be shown that the cross‐cultural use of French has resulted in creative linguistic and stylistic modifications reflecting the sensibilities, inherited cultural patterns, and disposition of its users. Accordingly, new linguistic varieties of French have unfolded throughout the francophone world in Africa. The native speakers’ common reaction to texts created in African varieties of French has been puzzlement, alarm, indignation, mockery, and the like. Using texts from novels written by francophone African writers, it will be shown that these reactions have ensued from linguistic processes known as grammatical deviations, non‐native lexicalisation, and non‐native style features. This paper also shows that in the African context, French is acquired in the socio‐cultural and intellectual context of Africa and not the Christian, Franco‐European intellectual milieu of the native varieties. As a consequence, new discourse strategies that express the beliefs, values, experiences, and knowledge gained in the African setting have developed. Given that these discourse texts are intended for an African audience, African authors who write in French are directly or indirectly compelled to use varieties that serve as the basis of daily linguistic input in most communicative interactions. Finally, it will be shown that readers of francophone African literary work must consequently develop the textual competence for these varieties. This competence, according to Y. Kachru (1987), involves three types of knowledge: the knowledge of the linguistic characteristics of African varieties of French; the familiarity with the experiences, expectations, beliefs, values, and knowledge of the African people; and the knowledge of text types in African literature.

History: Text: Future

Summary This article is an investigation into the historiographical concerns that inform any literary projection of the historical past and/or present into the future. Parts 1–3, then, survey the status of the future in the textualization of history, engaging with narrative versus nomological accounts of historiographical structures and moving towards the Utopian element informing historical projection. Part 4 picks up the more specifically “literary” concerns to which a consideration of the Utopian brings us, and prepares a critical strategy for dealing with the intersection of the historical and the literary in their use of the future. The project as it stands is meant to serve as a preparation for a later analysis of key South African literary works which operate within the “genre” (developed as a heuristic device) of “future histories”.

American University and Research Library Holdings in African Literature

American scholars doing research in African literature sometimes have trouble locating the books they need. It is easy enough to get one's hands on African literary works published in England or America, but how does one get hold of material published in Africa -- e.g., Onitsha market chapbooks, early Lovedale or Morija press publications, or works in vernacular languages published by literature bureaus and small mission presses? Fortunately, for the older titles once can search through several published library catalogs -- Library of Congress (1942-1952), UCLA (1963), Berkeley (1963), the Schomburg Collection of the New York Public Library (1962), the African collection in the Moorland Foundation at Howard University (1958), Northwestern University's African collection (1962) -- and for the newer titles one can consult the National Union Catalog or the Joint Acquisitions List of Africana issued since 1961 by the Northwestern University Library. However, because these reference works do not list the older titles which libraries have acquired in recent years, one can never be certain that a particular African literary work is unavailable in the United States.