SEMI-FINAL PERIOD

LITERATURE 2 (WORLD LITERATURE)

AFRO-ASIAN LITERATURE

C. JAPAN

Historical Background. Early Japan borrowed much from Chinese culture

but evolved its own character over time. Early Japan’s political structure was
based on clan, or family. Each clan developed a hierarchy of classes with
aristocrats, warriors, and priests at the top and peasants and workers at the
bottom. During the 4th century A.D. the Yamato grew to be most powerful and
imposed the Chinese imperial system on Japan creating an emperor, an
imperian bureaucracy, and a grand capital city.

a) The Heian Age was the period of peace and prosperity, of aesthetic
refinement and artificial manners. The emperor began to diminish in
power but continued to be respected figure. Since the Japanese court
had few official responsibilities, they were able to turn their attention to
art, music, and literature.
The Pillow Book by SeiShōnagon, represents a unique form of the
diary genre. It contains vivid sketches of people and place, shy
anecdotes and witticisms, snatches of poetry, and 164 lists on court life
during the Heian period. Primarily intended to be a private journal, it
was discovered and eventually printed. Shōnagon served as a lady-in-
wating to the Empress Sadako in the late 10th century.
b) The Feudal Era was dominated by the samurai class which included the
militaristic lords, the daimyo and the band of warriors, the samurai
who adhered to a strict code of conduct the emphasized bravery, loyalty,
and honor. In 1192, Yorimato became the shogun or chief general one of
a series of shoguns who ruled Japan for over 500 years.
c) The Tokugawa Shogonate in the late 1500s crushed the warring feudal
lords and controlled all of Japan from a new capital at Edo, now
Tokyo.by 1630 and for two centuries, Japan was a closed society: all
 foreigners were expelled, Japanese Christians were persecuted, and
foreign travel was forbidden under penalty of death. The shogonate was
ended in 1868 when Japan began to trade with the Western powers.
Under a more powerful emperor, Japan rapidly acquired the latest
technological knowledge, introduced universal education, and created
an impressive industrial economy.

Religious Traditions. Two major faiths were essential elements in the cultural
foundations of Japan society.

a) Shintoism or “the way of the gods,” is the ancient religion that reveres
in dwelling divine spirits called kami, found in natural places and
objects. For this reason natural scenes, such as waterfall, a gnarled tree,
or a full moon, inspired reverence in the Japanese people. The Shinto
legends have been accepted as historical fact although in postwar times
they were once again regarded as myths. These legends from the
Records of Ancient Matters, of Kokiji, A.D. 712, and the Chronicles of
Japan, or Nihongi, A.D. 720 from the earliest writings of ancient Japan.
Both collections have been considerably influenced by Chinese thought.
b) Zen Buddhism emphasized the importance of meditation,
concentration, and self-discipline as the way to enlightenment. Zen
rejects the notion that salvation is attained outside of this life and this
world. Instead, Zen disciples believe that one can attain personal
tranquility and insights into the true meaning of life through rigorous
physical and mental discipline.

Socio-political Concepts, Japan has integrated Confucian ethics and Buddhist

morality which India implemented in China. The concepts of giri and on
explain why the average Japanese is patriotic, sometimes ultra-nationalistic,
law-abiding. Even seppuku or ritual disembowelment exemplify to what
extent these two socio-political concepts could be morally followed.
 a) Giri connotes duty, justice, honor, face, decency, respectability,
courtesy, charity, humanity, love, gratitude, claim. Its sanctions are
found in mores, customs, folkways. For example, in feudal Japan ‘loss
of face’ is savedby suicide or vendetta, if not renouncing the world in
the monastery.
b) On suggests a sense of obligation or indebtedness which propels a
Japanese to act, as it binds the person perpetually to other individuals
to the group, to parents, teachers, superiors, and the emperor.

Poetry is one of the oldest and most popular means of expression and
communication in the Japanese culture. It was an integral part of daily life in
ancient Japanese society, serving as a means through which anyone could
chronicle experiences and express emotions.

a) The Manyoshu or ‘Book or Ten Thousand Leaves is an anthology by

poets from a wide range of social classes, including the peasantry, the
clergy, and the ruling class.
b) There are different poems according to set forms or structures:
 Choka are poems that consist of alternate lines of five and seven
syllables with an additional seven-syllable line at the end. There is
no limit to the number of lines which end with envoys, or pithy
summations. These envoys consist of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables that
elaborate on or summarize the theme or central idea of the main
poem.
 Tanka is the most prevalent verse form in traditional Japanese
literature. It consists of five lines of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables including at
least one caesura, or pause. Used as a means of communication in
ancient Japanese society, the tanka often tell a brief story or
express a single thought or insight and the common subjects are
love and nature.
 Renga is a chain of interlocking tanka. Each tanka within a renga
was divided into verses of 17 and 14 syllables composed by
different poets as it was fashionable for groups of poets to work
together during the age of Japanese feudalism.
  Hokku was the opening verse of renga which developed into a
distinct literary form known as the haiku. The haiku consists of 3
lines of 5-7-5 syllable characterized by precision, simplicity, and
suggestiveness. Almost all haiku include a kigo or seasonal words
such as snow or cherry blossoms that indicates the time of year
being described.

Prose appeared in the early part of the 8th century focusing on Japanese
history. During the Heian Age, the members of the imperial court, having few
administrative or political duties, kept lengthy diaries and experimented with
writing fiction.

 The Tale of Genji by Lady MurasakiShikibu, a work of tremendous

length and complexity, is considered to be the world’s first true novel. It
traces the life of a gifted and charming prince. Lady Murasaki was an
extraordinary woman far more educated than most upper-class men of
her generation. She was appointed to serve in the royal court of the
emperor.
 The Tale of Haike written by an anonymous author during the 13 th
century was the most famous early Japanese novel. It presents a striking
portrait of war-torn Japan during the early stages of the age of
feudalism.
 Essays in Idleness by Yoshida Kenko was written during the age of
feudalism. It is a loosely organized collection of insights, reflections, and
observations, written during the 14th century. Kenko was born into a
high-ranking Shinto family and became a Buddhist priest.
 In the Grove by RyunusukeAkutagawa is the author’s most famous
story made into the film Rashomon. The story asks these questions:
What is he truth? Who tells the truth? How is the truth falsified? Six
narrators tell their own testimonies about the death of a husband and
the violation of his wife in the woods. The narrators include a
woodcutter, a monk, an old woman, the mother-in-law of the slain man,
the wife, and finally, the dead man whose story is spoken through the
mouth of a shameness. Akutagawa’s ability to blend a feudal setting
with deep psychological insights gives this story an ageless quality.
Drama.

a) No plays emerged during the 14th century as the earliest form of

Japanese drama. The plays are performed on an almost bare stage by a
small but elaborately costumed cast of actors wearing masks. The actors
are accompanied by a chorus and the plays are written either in verse
or in highly poetic prose. The dramas reflect many Shinto and Buddhist
beliefs, along with a number of dominant Japanese artistic preferences.
The Nō performers’ subtle expressions of inner strength, along with the
beauty of the costumes, the eloquence of the dancing, the mesmerizing
quality of the singing, and the mystical, almost supernatural,
atmosphere of the performances, has enabled the Nō theater to retain its
popularity.
a. Atsumoriby SeamiMotokiyo is drawn from an episode of The Tale
of Heike, a medieval Japanese epic based on historical fact that
tells the story of the rise and fall of the Taira family, otherwise
known as Heike. The play takes place by the sea of Ichi no tani. A
priest named Rensei, who was once a warrior with the Genjiclan,
has decided to return to the scene of the battle to pray for a
sixteen-year-old named Atsumori, whom he killed on the beach
during the battle. Rensei had taken pity on Atsumori and had
almost refrained from killing him. He realized though that if he
did not kill the boy, his fellow warriors would. He explained to
Atsumori that he must kill him, and promised to pray for his soul.
On his return, he meets two peasants who are returning home
from their fields and Rensei makes an astonishing discovery about
one of them.
b. Kabuki involves lively, melodramatic, acting and is staged using
elaborate and colorful costumes and sets. It is performed with the
accompaniment of an orchestra and generally focuses on the lives
of common people rather than aristocrats.
c. Jorori (now called Bunraku) is staged using puppets and was a
great influence on the development of the Kabuki.
d. Kyogen is a farce traditionally performed between the Nō
tragedies.
Novels and Short Stories

 Snow Country by Kawabata tells of love denied by a Tokyo dilettante,

Shimamura, to Komako, a geisha who feels ‘used’ much as she wants to
think and feel that she is drawn sincerely, purely to a man of the world.
She has befriended Yoko to whom Shimamura is equally and
passionately drawn because of her virginity, her naivete, as he is
toKomako who loses it, after her affair with him earlier. In the end,
Yoko dies in the cocoon-warehouse in a fire notwithstanding Komako’s
attempt to rescue her. Komako embraces the virgin Yoko in her arms
while Shimamura senses the Milky Way ‘flowing down inside him with
a roar.’ Kawabata makes use of contrasting thematic symbols in the
title: death and purification amidst physical decay and corruption.
 The House of Sleeping Beauties by Kawabata tells the escapades of a
dirty old man, Eguchi, to a resort near a sea where young women are
given drugs before they are made to sleep sky-clad. Decorum rules in
that these sleeping beauties should not be touched, lest the customers be
driven away by the management. The book lets the reader bare the
deeper recesses of the septuagenarian’s mind. Ironically, this old man
who senses beauty and youth is incapable of expressing, much less
having it. Thus, the themes of old age and loneliness and coping become
inseparable.
 The Makioka Sisters by Tanizaki is the story of four sisters whose chief
concern is finding a suitable husband for the third sister, Yukiko, a
woman of traditional beliefs who has rejected several suitors. Until
Yukiko marries, Taeko, the youngest, most independent, and most
Westernized of the sisters, must remain unmarried. More important
than the plot, the novel tells of middle class daily life in prewar Osaka.
It also delves into such topics as the intrusion of modernity and its effect
on the psyche of the contemporary Japanese, the place of kinship in the
daily life of the people, and the passage of the old order and the coming
of the new.
 The Sea of Fertility by Mishima is the four-part epic including Spring
Snow, Runaway Horses, The Temple Dawn, and The Decay of the
Angel. The novels are set in Japan from about 1912 to the 1960s. Each
 of them depicts a different incarnation of the same being: as a young
aristocrat in 1912, as a political fanatic in the 1930s, as a Thai princess
before the end of WWII, and as an evil young orphan in the 1960s.
taken together the novels are a clear indication of Mishima’s increasing
obsession with blood, death, and suicide, his interest in self-destructive
personalities, and his rejection of the sterility of modern life.
 The Setting Sun by Ozamu is a tragic, vividly painted story of life in
postwar Japan. The narrator is Kazuko, a young woman born to
gentility but now impoverished. Though she wears Western clothes, her
outlook is Japanese; her life is static, and she recognizes that she is
spiritually empty. In the course of the novel, she survives the deaths of
her aristocratic mother and her sensitive, drug-addicted brother Naoji,
an intellectual ravage by his own and society’s spiritual failures. She
also spends a sad, sordid night with the writer Uehara, and she
conceives a child in the hope that it will be the first step in a moral
revolution.
 In the Grove by Akutagawa is the author’s most famous story made into
the film Rashomon.
 The Wild Geese by Oagi is a melodramatic novel set in Tokyo at the
threshold on the 20th century. The novel explores the blighted life of
Otama, daughter of a cake vendor. Because of extreme poverty, she
becomes the mistress of a policeman, and later on of a money-lender,
Shazo. In her desire to rise from the pitfall of shame and deprivation,
she tries to befriend Okada, a medical student who she greets everyday
by the window as he passes by on his way to the campus. She is
disillusioned however, as Okada, in the end, prepares for further
medical studies in Germany. Ogai’s novel follows the tradition of the
watakushi-shosetsu or the confessional I-novel where the storyteller is
the main character.
 The Buddha Tree by Fumio alludes to the awakening of Buddha under
the bo tree when he gets enlightened after fasting 40 days and nights.
Similarly, the hero of the novel, Soshu, attains self-illumination after
freeing himself from the way of all flesh. The author was inspired by
 personal tragedies that befell their family and this novel made him
transcend his personal agony into artistic achievement.
 The Wild Geese by Oagi is a melodramatic novel set in Tokyo at the
threshold of the 20th century. The novel explores the blighted life of
Otama, daughter of a cake vendor. Because of extreme poverty, she
becomes the mistress of a policeman, and later on of a money-lender,
Shazo. In her desire to rise from the pitfall of shame and deprivation,
she tries to befriend Okada, a medical student who she greets every day
by the window as he passes by on his way to the campus. She is
disillusioned however, as Okada, in the end, prepares for further
medical studies in Germany. Ogai’s novel follows tha tradition of the
watakushi-shosetsu or the confessional I-novel where the storyteller is
the main character.
 The Buddha Tree by Fumio alludes to the awakening of Buddha under
the bo tree when he gets enlightened after fasting 40 days and nights.
Similarly, the hero of the novel, Soshu, attains self-illumination after
freeing himself from the way of all flesh. The author was inspired by
personal tragedies that befell their family and this novel made him
transcend his personal agony into artistic achievement.

MAJOR WRITERS

 Seami Motokiyo had acting in his blood for his father Kanami, a priest,
was one of the finest performers of his day. At age 20 not long after his
father’s death, he took over his father’s acting school and began to write
plays. Some say he became a Zen priest late in life; others say he had
two sons, both of them actors. According to legend, he died alone at the
age of 81 in a Buddhist temple near Kyoto.
 The Haiku Poets
 Matsuo Bashō (1644-1694) is regarded as the greatest haiku poet.
He was born into a samurai family and began writing poetry at an
early age. After becoming a Zen Buddhist, he moved into an
isolated hut on the outskirts of Edo (Tokyo) where he lived the life
of a hermit, supporting himself by teaching and judging poetry.
Bashō means ‘banana plant,’ a gift given to which he became
 deeply attached. Over time, his hut became known as the Bashō
Hut until he assumed the name.
 Yosa Buson (1716-1827) is regarded as the second-greatest haiku
poet. He lived in Kyoto most of his life and was one of the finest
painters of his time. Buson presents a romantic view of the
Japanese landscape, vividly capturing the wonder and mystery of
nature.
 Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827) is ranked with Bashō and Buson
although his talent was not widely recognized until after his death.
Issa’s poems capture the essence of daily life in Japan and convey
his compassion for the less fortunate.
 Yasunari Kawabata (1899-1972) won the Nobel Prize for Literature in
1968. The sense of loneliness and preoccupation with death that
permeates much of his mature writing possibly derives from the
loneliness of his childhood having been orphaned early. Three of his
best novels are: Snow Country, Thousand Cranes, and Sound of the
Montains. He committed suicide shortly after the suicide of his friend
Mishima.
 Junichiro Tanizaki (1886-1965) is a major /novelist whose writing is
characterized by eroticism and ironic wit. His earliest stories were like
those of Edgar Allan Poe’s, but he later turned toward the exploration
of more traditional Japanese ideals of beauty. Among his works are
Some Peter Nettles, The Makioka Sisters, Diary of a Mad Old Man.
 Yukio Mishima (1925-1970) is the pen name of Kimitake Hiraoke, a
prolific writer who is regarded by many writers as the most important
Japenese novelist of the 20th century. His highly acclaimed first novel,
Confessions of a Mask is partly autobiographical work that describes
with stylistic brilliance a homosexual who must mask his sexual
orientation. Many of his novels have main characters who, for physical
or psychological reasons, are unable to find happiness. Deeply attracted
to the austere patriotism and marital spirit of Japan’s past, Mishima
was contemptuous of the materialistic Westernized society of Japan in
the postwar era. Mishima committed seppuku (ritual disembowelment).
  Dazai Ozamu (1909-1948) just like Mishima, and Kawabata committed
suicide, not unusual, but so traditional among Japanese intellectuals. It
is believed that Ozamu and psychological conflicts arising from his
inability to draw a red line between his Japaneseness clashing with his
embracing the Catholic faith, if not the demands of creativity. The
Setting Sun is one of his works.
 Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927) is a prolific writer of stories, plays,
and poetry, noted for his stylistic virtuosity. He is one of the most widely
translated of all Japanese writers, and a number of his stories have been
made into films. Many of his short stories are Japanese tales retold in
the light of modern psychology in a highly individual style of feverish
intensity that is well-suited to their macabre themes. Among his works
are Rashomon, and Kappa. He also committed suicide.
 Oe Kenzaburo (1935-) a novelist whose rough prose style, at time nearly
violating the natural rhythms of the Japanese language, epitomizes the
rebellion of the post-WWII generation which he writes. He was
awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1994. Among his works are:
Lavish are the Dead, The Catch, Our Generation, A Personal Matter,
The Silent Cry, and Awake, New Man!.

D. AFRICA

1. The Rise of Africa’s Great Civilization. Between 751 and 664 B.C. the
kingdom of Kush at the southern end of the Nile River gained strength and
prominence succeeding the New Kingdom of Egyptian civilization. Smaller
civilizations around the edges of the Sahara also existed among them the Fasa
of the northern Sudan, whose deeds are recalled by the Soninka oral epic, The
Daust.

 Aksum (3rd century A.D.), a rich kingdom in the eastern Africa arose in
what is now Ethiopia. It served as the center of the trade route and
developed ita own writing system. The Kingdom of Old Ghana (A.D.
300), the first of great civilizations in western Africa, succeeded by the
empires of Old Mali and Songhai. The legendary city of Timbuktu was
a center of trade and culture in both the Mali and Songhai empires.
New cultures sprang up throughout the South: Luba and Malawi
empires in central Africa, the two Congo kingdoms, the Swahili culture
of eastern Africa, the Kingdom of Old Zimbabwe, and the Zulu nation
near the southern tip of the continent.
 Africa’s Golden Age (between A.D. 300 and A.D. 1600) marked the time
when sculpture, music, metalwork, textiles, and oral literature
flourished.
 Foreign influences came in the 4 th century. The Roman Empire had
proclaimed Christianity as its state religion and taken control of the
entire northern coast of Africa including Egypt. Around 700 A.D. Islam,
the religion of Mohammed, was introduced into Africa as well as the
Arabic writing system. Old Mali, Somali and other eastern African
nations were largely Muslim. Christianity and colonialism came to sub-
Saharan Africa towards the close of Africa’s Golden Age. European
powers created colonized countries in the late 1800s.Social and political
chaos reigned as traditional African nations were either split apart by
European colonizers or joined with incompatible neighbors.
 Mid-1900s marked the independence and rebirth of traditional cultures
written in African languages.

2. Literary Forms.

a) Orature is the tradition of African oral literature, which includes praise,

poems, love poems, tales, ritual dramas, and moral instructions in the
 form of proverbs and fables. It also includes epics and poems and
narratives.
b) Griots, the keepers of oral literature in West Africa, may be a
professional storyteller, singer, or entertainer and were skilled at
creating and transmitting the many forms of African oral literature.
Bards, storytellers, town criers, and oral historians also preserved and
continued the oral tradition.
c) Features of African oral literature:
 repetition and parallel structure – served foremost as memory
aids for griots and other storytellers. Repetition also creates
rhythm, builds suspense, and adds emphasis to parts of the poem
or narrative. Repeated lines or refrains often mark places where
an audience can join in the oral performance.
 repeat-and-vary technique – in which lines or phrases are
repeated with slight variations, sometimes by changing a single
word.
 tonal assonance –the tones in which syllables are spoken
determine the meanings of words like many Asian languages.
 call-and-response format – includes spirited audience
participation in which the leader calls out a line or phrase and the
audience responds with an answering line or phrase becoming
performers themselves.
d) Lyric Poems do not tell a story but instead, like songs, create a vivid,
expressive testament to a speaker’s thoughts or emotional state. Love
lyrics were an influence of the New Kingdom and were written to be
sung with the accompaniment of a harp or a set of reed pipes.
e) Hymns of Praise Songs were offered to the sun god Aten. The Great
Hymn to Aten is the longest of several New Kingdom hymns. This hymn
was found on the wall of a tomb built for a royal scribe named Ay and
his wife. In was intended to assure their safety in the afterlife.
f) African Proverbs are much more than quaint old sayings. Instead, they
represent a poetic form that uses few words but achieves great depth of
meaning and they function as the essence of people’s values and
knowledge.
  They are used to settle legal disputes, to resolve ethical problems,
and to teach children the philosophy of their people.
 They often contain puns, rhymes, and clever allusions, they also
provide entertainment.
 They mark power and eloquence of speakers in the community
who know and use them. Their ability to apply the proverbs to
appropriate situations demonstrates an understanding of social
and political realities.
g) Dilemma or Enigma Tale is an important kind of African moral tale
intended for listeners to discuss and debate. It is an open-ended story
that concludes with a question that asks the audience to choose from
among several alternatives. By encouraging animated discussion, a
dilemma tale invites its audience to think about right and wrong
behavior and how to best live within society.
h) Ashanti Tale comes from Ashanti, whose traditional homeland is the
dense and hilly forest beyond the city of Kumasi in south-central Ghana
which was colonized by the British in the mid-19 th century. However,
the Ashanti protected in their geographical stronghold, were able to
maintain their ancient culture. The tale exemplifies common
occupations of the Ashanti such as farming, fishing, and weaving. It
combines such realistic elements with fantasy elements like talking
objects and animals.
i) Folk Tales have been handed down in the oral tradition from ancient
times. The stories represent a wide and colorful variety that embodies
the African people’s most cherished religious and social beliefs. The
tales are used to entertain, to teach, and to explain. Nature and the close
bond that Africans share with the natural world are emphasized. The
mystical importance of the forest, sometimes called the bush, is often
featured.
j) Origin stories include creation stories and stories explaining the origin
of death.
k) Trickster Tale is an enormously popular type. The best known African
trickster figure is Anansi the Spider, both the hero and villain from the
 West African origin to the Caribbean and other parts of the Western
Hemisphere as a result of the slave trade.
l) Moral Stories attempt to teach a lesson.
m) Humorous Stories are primarily intended to amuse.
n) Epics of vanished heroes – partly human, partly superhuman, who
embody the highest values of a society – carry with them a culture’s
history, values, and traditions. The African literary traditions boast of
several oral epics.
 The Dausi from the Soninke
 Monzon and the King of Kore from the Bambara of western
Africa
 The epic of Askia the Great, medieval ruler of the Songhai empire
in western Africa
 The epic of the Zulu Empire of southern Africa
 Sundiata from the Mandingo peoples of West Africa is the best
preserved and the best-known African epic, which is a blend of
fact and legend. Sundiata Keita, the story’s hero really existed as
a powerful leader who in 1235 defeated the Sosso nation of
western Africa and reestablished the Mandingo Empire of Old
Mali. Supernatural powers are attributed to Sundiata and he is
involved in a mighty conflict between good and evil. It was first
recorded in Guinea in the 1950s and was told by the griot Djeli
Mamoudou Kouyate.

3. Negritude, which means literally ‘blackness,’ is the literary movement of

the 1930s – 1950s that began among French-speaking African and Caribbean
writers living in Paris as a protest against French colonial rule and the policy
of assimilation. Its leading figure was Leopold Sedar Senghor (1 st president of
the Republic of Senegal in 1960), who along with Aime Cesaire from
Martinique and Leo Damas from French Guina, began to examine Western
values critically and to reassess African culture. The movement largely faded
in the early 1960s when its political and cultural objectives had been achieved
in most African countries. The basic ideas behind Negritude include:
  Africans must look to their own cultural heritage to determine the
values and traditions that are most useful in the modern world.
 Committed writers should use African subject matter and poetic
traditions and should excite a desire for political freedom.
 Negritude itself encompasses the whole of African cultural, economic,
social, and political values.
 The value and dignity of African traditions and peoples must be
asserted.

4. African Poetry is more eloquent in its expression of Negritude since it is the

poets who first articulated their thoughts and feelings about the inhumanity
suffered by their own people.

 Paris in the Snow swings between assimilation of French, European

culture or negritude, intensified by the poet’s catholic piety.
 Totem by Leopold Senghor shows the eternal linkage of the living with
the dead.
 Letters to Martha by Dennis Brutus is the poet’s most famous collection
that speaks of the humiliation, the despondency, the indignity of prison
life.
 Train Journey by Dennis Brutus reflects the poet’s social commitment,
as he reacts to the poverty around him amidst material progress
especially and acutely felt by the innocent victims, the children.
 Telephone Conversation by Wole Soyinka is the poet’s most
anthologized poem that reflects Negritude. The poetic dialogue reveals
the landlady’s deep-rooted prejudice against the colored people as the
caller plays up on it.
 Africa by David Diop is a poem that achieves its impact by a series of
climactic sentences and rhetorical questions.
 Songs of Lawino by Okot P’Bitek is a sequence of poems anout the clash
between African and Western values and is regarded as the first
important poem in “English to emerge from Eastern Africa.” Lawino’s
song is a plea for the Ugandans to look back to traditional village life
and recapture African values.
5. Novels.

 The Houseboy by Ferdinand Oyono points out the disillusionment of

Toundi, a boy who leaves his parents maltreatment to enlist his services
as an acolyte to a foreign missionary. After the priest’s death, he
becomes a helper of a white plantation owner, discovers the liaison of
his master’s wife, and gets murdered later in the woods as they catch up
with him. Toundi symbolizes the disenchantment and the coming of age,
and utters despondency of the Camerooninans over the corruption and
immortality of the whites. The novel is developed in the form of a recit,
the French style of a diary-like confessional work.
 Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe depicts a vivid picture of Africa
before the colonization by the British. The title is an epigraph from
Yeats’ The Second Coming: ‘things fall apart/ the center cannot hold/
mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.’ The novel laments over the
disintegration of Nigerian society, represented in the story by Okwonko,
once a respected chieftain who looses his leadership and falls from grace
after the coming of the whites. Cultural values are woven around the
plot to mark its authenticity: polygamy since the character is Muslim;
tribal law is held supreme by the gwugwu, respected elders in the
community; a man’s social status is determined by the people’s esteem
and by possession of fields of yams and physical prowess; community
life is shown in drinking sprees, funeral wakes, and sports festivals.
 No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe is a sequel to Things Fall Apart
and the title of which is alluded to Eliot’s The Journey of the Magi: ‘We
returned to our places, these kingdoms,/ But no longer at ease here, in
the old dispensation.’ The returning hero fails to cope with disgrace and
social pressure. Okwonko’s son has to live up to the expectations of the
Umoufians, after winning a scholarship in London, where he reads
literature, not law as is expected of him, he has to dress up, he must
have a car, he has to maintain his social standing, and he should not
marry an Ozu, an outcast. In the end, the tragic hero succumbs to
temptation, he, too receives bribes, and therefore, is ‘no longer at ease.’
 The Poor Christ of Bombay by Mongo Beti begins en medias res and
exposes the inhumanity of colonialism. The novel tells of Fr. Drumont’s
 disillusionment after the discovery of the degradation of the native
women, betrothed, but forced to work like slaves in the sixa. The
government steps into the picture as syphilis spreads out in the priest’s
compound. It turns out that the native whose weaknesses are wine,
women, and song has been made overseer of the sixa when the Belgian
priest go out to attend to his other mission work. Developed through
recite or diary entries, the novel is a satire on the failure of religion to
integrate to national psychology without first understanding the natives’
culture.
 The River Between by James Ngugi shows the clash of traditional values
and contemporary ethics and mores. The Honia River is symbolically
taken as a metaphor of tribal and Christian unity – the Makuyu tribe
conducts Christian rites while the Kamenos hold circumcision rituals.
Muthoni, the heroine, although a new-born Christian, desires the pagan
ritual. She dies in the end but Waiyaki, the teacher, does not teach
vengeance against Joshua, the leader of the Kamenos, but unity with
them. Ngugi poses co-existence of religion with people’s lifestyle at the
same time stressing the influence of education to enlighten people about
their socio-political responsibilities.
 Heirs to the Past by Driss Chraili is an allegorical, parable-like novel.
After 16 years of absence, the anti-hero Driss Ferdi returns to
Morocco for his father’s funeral. The Signeur leaves his legacy via a
tape recorder in which he tells the family members his last will and
testament. Each chapter in the novel reveals his relationship with
the, and at the same time lays bare the psychology of these people.
His older brother Jaad was ‘born once and had died several times’
because of his childishness and irresponsibility. His idiotic brother,
Nagib, has become a total burden to the family. His mother feels
betrayed, after doing the roles as wife and mother for 30 years, as
she yearns for her freedom. Driss flies back to Europe completely
alienated from his people, religion, and civilization.
 A Few Days and Few Nights by Mbella Sonne Dipoko deals with
racial prejudice. In the novel originally written in French, a
Cameroonian scholar studying in France is torn between the love of
 a Swedish girl and a Parisienne whose father owns a business
establishment in Africa. The father rules out the possibility of
marriage. Therese, their daughter commits suicide and Doumbe, the
Cameroonian, thinks only of the future of Bibi, the Swedish who is
expecting his child. Doumbe’s remark that the African is like a
turtle, which carries it home wherever it goes implies the racial pride
and love for the native grounds.
 The Interpreters by Wole Soyinka is about a group of young
intellectuals who function as artists in their talks with one another as
they try to place themselves in the context of the world about them.

6. Major Writers

 Leopold Sedar Senghor (1906) is a poet and statesman who was

cofounder of the Negritude movement in African art and literature. He
went to Paris on a scholarship and later taught in the French school
system. During these years, Senghor discovered the unmistakable
imprint of African art on modern painting, sculpture, and music, which
confirmed his belief in Africa’s contribution to modern culture. Drafted
during WWII, he was captured and spent two years in Nazi
concentration camp where he wrote some of his finest poems. He
became president of Senegal in 1960. His works include: Songs of
Shadow, Black Offerings, Major Elegies, Poetical Work. He became
Negritude’s foremost spokesman and edited an anthology of French
language poetry by black African that became a seminal text of the
Negritude movement.
 Okot P’Bitek (1930-1882) was born in Uganda during the British
domination and was embodied in a contrast of cultures. He attended
English-speaking schools, but never lost touch with traditional African
values and used his wide array of talents to pursue his interests in both
African and Western cultures. Among his works are : Song of Lawino,
Song of Ocol, African Religions and Western Scholarship, Religion of
the Central Lou, Horn of My Love.
 Wole Soyinka (1934) is a Nigerian playwright, poet, novelist, and critic
who was the first black African to be awarded the Nobel Prize for
 Literature in 1986. He wrote of modern West Africa in a satirical style
and with a tragic sense of the obstacles to human progress. He taught
literature and drama and headed theater groups at various Nigerian
universities. Among his works are: plays – A Dance of the Forests, The
Lion and the Jewel, The Trials of Brother Jero; novels – The
Interpreters, Season of Anomy; poems – Idanre and Other Poems,
Poems from Prison, A Shuttle in the Crypt, Mandela’s Earth and Other
Poems.
 Chinua Achebe (1930) is a prominent Igbo novelist acclaimed for his
unsentimental depictions of the social and psychological disorientation
accompanying the imposition of Western customs and values upon
traditional African society. His particular concern was with emergent
Africa at its moments of crisis. His works include, Things Fall Apart,
Arrow of God, No Longer at Ease, A Man of the People, Anthills of
Savanah.
 Nadine Gordimer (1923) is a South African novelist and short story
writer whose major theme was exile and alienation. She received the
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991. Gordimer was writing by age 9 and
published her first story in a magazine at 15. Her works exhibit a clear,
controlled, and unsentimental technique that became her hallmark. She
examines how public events affect individual lives, how the dreams of
one’s youth are corrupted, and how innocence is lost. Among her works
are: The Soft Voice of the Serpent, Burger’s Daughter, July’s People, A
Sport of Nature, My Son’s Story.
 Bessie Head (1937-1986) described the contradictions and shortcomings
of pre- and postcolonial African society in morally didactic novels and
stories. She suffered rejection and alienation from an early age being
born of an illegal union between her white mother and black father.
Among her works are: When Rain Clouds Gather, A Question of
Power, The Collector of Treasures, Serowe.
 Barbara Kimenye (1940) wrote twelve books on children’s stories
known as the Moses series, which are now a standard reading fare for
African school children. She also worked for many years for His
Highness the Kabaka’s librarian. She was a journalist of The Uganda
 Nation and later a columnist for a Nairobi newspaper. Among her
works are: Kalasanda Revisited, The Smugglers, The Money Game.
 Ousmane Sembene (1923) is a writer and filmmaker from Senegal. His
works reveal an intense commitment to political and social change. In
the words of one of his characters: You will never be a good writer so
long as you don’t defend a cause.” Sembene tells his stories from out of
Africa’s past and relates their relevance and meaning for contemporary
society. His works include, O My Country, My Beautiful People, God’s
Bits of Wood, The Storm.