Littérature, African literature, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Petals of Blood, The Palm-Wine Drinkard, Amos Tutuola, Phanuel Egejuru, Olaudah Equiano, slavery, Ayi Kwei Armah, The Season of Anomy, African novel, Things Fall Apart, English novel, European literature, Nigeria, Ghana, Chinua Achebe, globalization, Obiajunwa Wali, The Dead End of the African Literature, African language, Sembène Ousmane, symbolism, perceptiveness, perception, cruelty, A Grain of Wheat, Weep Not Child, socialist perception, social realism, imperialism, capitalism, materialism, The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, corruption, Daniel O Fagunwa, cross-cultural conflict, individualism, nepotism, tribalism, characteristics of a novel
By and large, the objective of this course is to get students in the humanities to cast a meaningful glance at the landscape of the aesthetico-social and political realities which have affected the continent, ever since slavery days through colonization up to the contemporary stage, in the prism of West African Anglophone literary productions.
It focuses mainly on the novel as a genre, assessing its emergence and development and leading the student of literature through a modicum of theoretical sinews as well as molding their consciousness through some critical issues of burning importance.
Hence, it provides the students with significant insights (perceptiveness; perception) as to how to iron them out. But above all, the course is an invitation to take due stock of the destiny of the black man and foster (promote) a productive awareness in him at a moment when globalization does no bid fair for lesser socio-economic entities.
[...] (pp.123-125). "Umuofia had indeed changed during the seven years . He has put knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart". Bibliography Achebe, C. Things Fall Apart, London: Heinemann Chinweizu et al. Towards the Decolonization of African literature, vol.1, Nigeria: Fourth Dimension Publishing Company Larson, Charles R. The Emergence of African Fiction, Rev.ed., NEW York: Macmillan Press Palmer, Eustace. The Growth of the African Novel, Ibadan University Press Sartre, jean Paul, What is Literature? Trans. [...]
[...] These Africans are anxious to be Europeans. This ironic treatment is contained in the advertisement of Munira - "be a blonde, red-head, a whole new you". In the treatment of characters there is also this irony - Munira's is most ironic. A district of Ilmorog is called Jerusalem, another, Capetown. These names evoke South Africa and Apartheid and racial discrimination of whites against blacks. Here, it symbolizes the acceptance of the prevailing condition in South Africa. Actually, irony pervades the novel in terms of characterization and descriptions of situations. [...]
[...] African writers are sociologically inclined in their attempt to improve the well-being of the society. They are committed writers and that is why their works are always centered on some issues of burning importance to African society. The African novel, therefore, is political and very critical about the social realities of our existence. Some present situations e.g., Achebe's Thing Fall Apart. Our writers' main task is to make us conscious and aware of the situation. Hence African novels always deal with national issues. [...]
[...] But African in Africa did not start writing until the 20th century. This lateness can be attributed to the non-existence of the written tradition in Africa. Moreover, the influence of the writers in Europe on African s was also non-existent because of their relative unpopularity in Africa. Most of our early writers wrote in their indigenous language because they were not articulate enough in the European and confident to write in them. The Hausa people of the Northern Nigeria and part Niger started writing in Arabic language long ago. [...]
[...] Thus, the African novel has been critical from the beginning. What we notice as the novel develops is the heightening of the intensity of the criticism as its target shifted from white men to black men. While the criticism has been solely motivated by liberal humanistic considerations in the past, it has acquired a proletarian class perspective in the hands of the writers like Ngugi and others. The number of novels and novelists has risen considerably. This is a sort of development too. [...]
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