REVIEWER FOR WORLD LITERATURE
ASIAN LITERATURE
East Asian Literature: Chinese, Japanese and Korean
Central Asian Literature: Bengali, Indian, Pakistani and Tamil
West Asian Literature: Arabic, Persian and Turkish
Southeast Asian Literature: Philippine
Representative Texts and Authors from Asia
Miguel Syjuco (Philippines)
Filipino writer from Manila
Grand prize winner of 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize for his novel Ilustrado
Ilustrado – with light shading of New York noir and American thriller; tells the story of a young writer’s apprentice tasked with the self-appointed mission of writing an account of his deceased master’s life. The action that follows takes readers on a journey of metacriticism, which does well to entertain while asking some serious questions about the state of Filipino literature as a whole.
Bi FeiYu (China)
Works are known for their complex portrayal of the "female psyche"
Some of the highest literary awards in China
Also wrote the screenplay for Zhang Yimou's 1996 film Shanghai Triad
Three Sisters: An intense and invigorating examination of personality and rampant individualism that’s set in the context of high-Communist China in the years of the Cultural Revolution, does well to draw its readers in with a plethora of storylines that touch on vice, sex, Machiavellian power plays, and contemporary politics all at the same time. With its focus on female characters and their interactions with male patriarchs in the China all around them, the book continues in the same vein as Feiyu’s other feminist works, while its general success was galvanized in 2010, when it garnered the prestigious Man Booker Prize for Asian Literature.
Shin Kyung Sook (South Korea)
Became the first Korean writer to win the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2012 for her novel Please Look After Mother.
Amongst the most highly regarded contemporary writers
Has won major literary prizes including the Manhae Literature Prize, the Dong-In Literary Award, and the Yi Sang Literary Prize
Prose is especially prized for its focus on exploring the psychological depths of the human mind.
Please Look After Mother - driven by the guilt of those closest to ‘Mother’, the saintly, sacrificial old woman who has gone missing in the center of Seoul. Alternating in perspective, from first to second to third person, the novel veers from near accusatory to reflective and explores themes of family in the midst of South Korea’s rapid urbanization and modernization of the past decade.
Govind Vinayak Karandikar (India)
Better known as Vinda
Indian poet, writer, literary critic, and translator of Marathi language
Writer of The Wheel
Yosuke Tanaka (Japan)
Born in Tokyo in 1969
Debuted in Eureka at the age of 19
Has written poems with stylistic diversity and a unique sense of humor
Wrote A Day When the Mountains are Visible and Sweet Ultramarine Dreams
Has emerged as the new poetic sensitivity in Japan, and is sure to remain one of the most important figures in 21st century Japanese poetry.
Haruki Murakami (Japan)
A famous Japanese author whose works have been translated into several languages
Not only arguably the most experimental Japanese novelist to have been translated into English, but is also the most popular, with sales in the millions worldwide
Now the most widely-read Japanese novelist of his generation; he has won virtually every prize in Japan has to offer, including its greatest, the “Yomiuri Literary Prize”.
Literary Genres
Haiku
Unrhymed poetic form consisting of 17 syllables arranged in three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables respectively
First emerged in Japanese literature during the 17th century, as a terse reaction to elaborate poetic traditions, though it did not become known by the name haiku until the 19th century.
A nature poem which revolves around seasons and nature
Science Fiction
A genre of speculative fiction that contains imagined elements that don’t exist in the real world
Spans a wide range of themes that often explore time travel, space travel, are set in the future, and deal with the consequences of technological and scientific advances
Ramayana (5th to 4th century BC) - includes Vimana flying machines able to travel into space or underwater, and destroy entire cities using advanced weapons.
Rigveda collection of Sanskrit hymns (1700–1100 BC) - "mechanical birds" that are seen "jumping into space speedily with a craft using fire and water.
Folklore
Expressive body of culture shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group
Includes oral traditions such as tales, proverbs, and jokes
Folk Songs: epics (Shishi), and narrative poems (Xushishi) similar to long ballads or lyrical fairy tales
Wedding songs (kujiage), drinking songs (jiuge), love songs (quingge), and work songs (laodongge)
Spoken narratives such as folktales (minjiangushi), myths (shenhua), legends (chuanshuo), animal tales (dongwugushi), and many more different styles of stories.
NORTH AMERICAN LITERATURE
Representative Texts and Authors
James Brendan Patterson (New York)
Born on March 22, 1947, in Newburgh, New York.
Influenced by Evan S. Connell's 1959 debut novel Mrs. Bridge.
Published his first novel in 1976 called The Thomas Berryman Number.
Has written 147 novels since 1976, with 114 New York Times bestselling novels. Known for holding the record for most #1 New York Times bestsellers by a single author (67 total).
Approximately 305 million copies sold worldwide.
Awards include the Edgar Award and International Thriller of the Year.
First author to have No. 1 new titles simultaneously on The New York Times adult and children's bestsellers lists.
Nicholas Sparks (North Carolina)
An American novelist, screenwriter, and philanthropist.
Has published twenty-one novels and two non-fiction books, all New York Times bestsellers.
Over 115 million copies sold in more than 50 languages.
Eleven novels adapted to film, grossing over $574 million at the box office.
John Green (Indianapolis, Indiana)
An American author and YouTube content creator.
Won the 2006 Printz Award for his debut novel Looking for Alaska.
His fourth novel, The Fault in Our Stars, debuted at number one on The New York Times Best Seller list in January 2012.
Critiqued for The New York Times Book Review and created original radio essays for NPR.
Suzanne Collins (Hartford, Connecticut)
The Hunger Games trilogy is inspired by the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur.
Her father's Air Force career influenced her understanding of poverty and war.
The Hunger Games was a bestseller for over 60 weeks and adapted into a film series.
Billy Collins (New York)
Poet Laureate of the United States (2001-2003).
Known for his connections with modern American life.
Works reflect everyday situations that resonate with middle-class Americans.
Literary Genres
Speculative Fiction
Authors speculate on the results of altering reality rather than character reactions.
Notable works include The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.
Graphic Novel
A narrative conveyed through comic strip format.
Introduced by American Cartoonist in 1964.
Examples: Watchmen by Allan Moore and Dracula by Bram Stoker.
Young Adult Fiction
Written for ages 12 to 18, encompassing themes of friendship, love, and identity.
Examples: The Fault In Our Stars by John Green and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han.
Chick Lit
Focuses on the emotional lives of young women, an American genre tackling modern womanhood issues.
Examples: The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger and Spellbound by Jane Green.
Fan Fiction
Fiction created by fans about characters/settings from original works.
Example: Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer.
Wattpad
An online community for readers and writers to publish user-generated content in various genres.
Fosters social communities around stories from both amateur and established writers.
EUROPEAN LITERATURE
Modern Writers: English, Spanish, French, Dutch, Polish, German, Italian, Modern Greek, Czech, and Russian, Scandinavians and Irish
Classical Works: Latin, Ancient Greek, Old Norse, Medieval French and the Italian Tuscan dialect of the renaissance
Synonym for Western Literature, a literature written in the context of Western culture in the language of Europe
Western Canon: Homer in Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil in Aeneid, Dante in Divine Comedy, and Chaucer in Canterbury Tales
Representative Text and Authors
Joanne Rowling / JK Rowling
Born in Yate, Gloucestershire
A British writer and philanthropist
Harry Potter film series:
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone,
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows
Robert Galbraith (pseudonym): also writes crime fiction like Cormoran Strike series:
The Cuckoo's Calling (2013),
The Silkworm (2014),
Career of Evil (2015),
Lethal White (2018), and
Troubled Blood (2020);
The Casual Vacancy in 2012
For adult readers; and
The Ickabog in 2020 for children as the latest
Named as the world’s first billionaire author according to Forbes and has lived as a “rags to riches” life.
Was also named a runner-up by Time Magazine in its 2007 Person of the Year
Was also appointed as a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour at the 2017 Birthday Honours for services to Literature and philanthropy
In October 2020, was named as the “Most Influential Woman in Britain.”
Stephen Edwin King (Richard Bachman)
Born in Portland, Maine
An American writer of various genres such as horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, science fiction, and fantasy novels.
Many of his books have been adapted into films, television, miniseries, and comic books.
Wrote:
Rage (1977),
The Long Walk (1979),
Roadwork (1981), and
The Running Man (1982), and Thinner (1984).
Has been described as the ‘King of Horror’;
Graduated with a degree in English in 1970 but had no luck for teaching position at first and took a job in laundry and continued writing short stories in spare time
Became an English educator at Hampden Academy in late 1971 and married fellow writer Tabitha Spruce also that year
Published an online serialized horror novel “The Plant” (2000), also wrote the digital novella “Riding Bullet” of the same year.
In August 2003, also began writing a column appearing in Entertainment Weekly called The Pop King which was attributed to Michael Jackson as ‘The King of Pop’;
The Cell (2006);
Duma Key (2008) and a collection Just After Sunset (2008);
Ur (2009);
Throttle, a novella co-written with his son Joe Hill; a collection of four novellas called The Dark, NO Stars (2010);
Nominated for the 2012 World Fantasy Award Best Novel;
Mr. Mercedes was inspired by a true event about a woman driving her car into a McDonald’s restaurant (2013);
Finders Keepers, second book (2015);
End of Watch (2016);
The Outsider (2018); The Institute (2019)
Neil Richard Mackinnon Gaiman
Born in Portchester, Hampshire, England as Neil Richard Gaiman
At age of four, was able to read
Writing career began in England as a journalist
A British writer who earned critical praise and popular success with richly imagined fantasy tales that frequently features a darkly humorous tone
Is credited with being one of the creators of modern comics, as well as an author whose work crosses genres and reaches audiences of all ages
Listed in the Dictionary of Literary Biography as one of the top ten living post-modern writers and is a prolific creator of works of prose, poetry, film, journalism, comics, song lyrics, and drama
Biography books:
Duran Duran biography and biography of Douglas Adams, Don’t Panic: The Official Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Companion
Graphic novel:
Violent Cases (1987) in which he collaborated with artist Dave McKean and resulted to come up with Black Orchid (1988) followed by the groundbreaking series The Sandman (1989) that captured an enviable list of awards and was DC Comics’ top selling title;
Became the first comic ever to receive a literary award, the 1991 World Fantasy Award for Best Short Story.
Novels:
Good Omens (with Terry Pratchett, 1990),
Neverwhere (1996),
Stardust (1999; became film in 2007), and
American Gods (2001)
Children’s book:
Coraline (2002; film (2009),
InterWorld (2007; with Michael Reaves) and the two sequels,
The Silver Dream (2013) and Eternity’s Wheel (2015)
Also received the Newbery Medal for his distinguished contribution to literature for children for The Graveyard Book (2008), then an adult novel The Ocean at the End of the Lane (2013)
An active user of the social networking site Twitter with over 2.7 million followers with the username @neilhimself
George Raymond Richard Martin (GRRM / George R.R. Martin)
An American novelist, short story writer, screenwriter, and television producer
Known for his international bestselling series of epic fantasy novels, A Song of Ice and Fire and later adapted into the Home Box Office (HBO) dramatic series of Game of Thrones (2011)
Graduated with a B.S. in Journalism summa cum laude from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism in Evanston, Illinois, and went on to complete his M.S. in Journalism the next year also from Medill
First sale was “The Hero”, Sold to Galaxy magazine and published in its February 1971 issue
“With Morning Comes Mistfall”: first story to be nominated for the Hugo Awards and Nebula Awards
“Dying of the Light”: first novel that was completed in 1976 and published in 1977
“Sandkings” (1979): The only short story of Martin that has won both the Hugo Award and Nebula Award as the Best Novelette and the Locus Award for best novelette;
Novella “Nightflyers” (1980): a vampire novel
Fevre Dream (1982); followed by a horror novel The Armagedon Rag (1983): essentially destroyed his career due to unexpected commercial failure, this was considered as his “lost year”
Epic fantasy series, A Song of Fire and said to be inspired by the Wars of the Roses, The Accursed Kings, and Ivanhoe.
He originally conceptualized it as three volumes but came up with seven volumes.
The First, A Game of Thrones (1996); A Clash of Kings (1998); A Storm of Swords (2000); A Feast of Crows (2005); became the New York Times No. 1 Bestseller;
A Dance with Dragons (2011); became the international bestseller and achieved No. 1 spot in New York Times Bestseller List; and the two more novels planned in the series:
The Winds of Winter and the final volume A Dream of Spring
European Literature History
Medieval Period (500-1500)
Any work written in Latin or the vernacular between c. 476-1500 CE
Age of Enlightenment (1700-1800)
A celebration of ideas of the human mind through action and science
Romantic Movement (1798-1870)
Concerned with masses instead of the middle class and the individual instead of society
Realism (1820-1920)
An effort to replicate the true nature of reality in a way that novelists had never attempted
Victorian Period (1837-1901)
Characterized by simplicity, truth, and tempered emotions
Existentialism (1850)
Emphasizes the individual existence, freedom, and choice
Naturalism (1870-1920)
Identifies the underlying causes for a person’s actions or beliefs
Modernism (1910-1945)
Writers free to try new concepts like the use of the unreliable narrative
Important Literary Movements
Realism
Denotes a lifelike, immediate quality
Represents reality by portraying mundane, everyday experiences as they are in real life, capturing all its minutest details
Tells a story as truthfully as possible instead of creative distortion through dramatization
Themes: class conflict, philosophy and morality, marriage and family, everyday experiences
Literary Genres
Magical Realism – presents a truthful world with magical elements (One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Marquez)
Social Realism – focuses on the lives of the poor and the working class (Les Miserables by Victor Hugo)
Socialist Realism – praises the lives of the proletariat (Cement by Fyodor Gladkov)
Kitchen Sink Realism – focuses on young working class who spend their time drinking at pubs (Room at the Top by John Braine)
Naturalism – involves science’s capability to explain everything (A for Emily Rose William Faulkner)
Psychological Realism – exposes the characters’ motivation to do certain actions (Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
Works: Atonement – Ian McEwan (2001), My Name is Red – Orhan Pamuk (1998;2001)
Existentialism
Emphasizes individual existence, freedom, and choice
Focuses on the question of human existence, and the feeling that there is no purpose or explanation at the core of existence
Themes: focus, existence essence, moral individualism, importance of individual and subjectivity, authenticity and inauthenticity, freedom to choose, atheism and religion, anxiety regarding life, death, contingencies, extreme situations, social criticism, absurdity, angst
Literary Genres
Expressionism emphasizes subjective experience, angst and intense emotionality, and deals with the anguish of the modern man (The Haunted Mansion by David Berenbaum)
Nihilism – focuses on the meaninglessness and purposelessness of life together with the insignificance of the universe (The Road Runner Show)
Works: Irrational Man – Woody Allen (2015), The Dark Knight Series – Christopher Nolan and David Goyer (2005, 2008, 2012)
Postmodernism
Emerged when society came to rely on technology, consumer culture, media, and images
Signifies the boundary between the external world and the individual consciousness
Questions the notion of the self (you, me, author, character, reader) as a source of meaning
Themes: intertextuality, hyperreality, irony, maximalism, paranoia, fragmentation, post World War II, late capitalism
Literary Genres
Metafiction – fiction within a fiction, a style of prose narrative in which attention is directed to the process of fictive composition (The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde)
Pastiche – an imitation of other texts or genres (Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell)
Works: The Starveling – Don DeLillo (2011), The Apologizer – Milan Kundera (2015)
LATIN AMERICAN LITERATURE
Consists of the oral and written literature of Latin America in diverse languages, like Spanish, Portuguese, and the Indigenous languages of the Americas
Themes: poverty, family and relationship loyalties, gender roles, social protest and exploitation, religion and magical realism
History
Pre-colonial Literature
Primarily oral, while the Aztecs and Mayans produced elaborate codices
Colonial Literature
When Europeans encountered the New World
Early explorers and conquistadores produced written accounts of crónicas of their experience, like Columbus’s letters or Bernal Diaz del Castillo’s description of the conquest of Mexico
Nineteenth Century Literature
The period of foundational fictions
Romantic or Naturalist: attempted to establish a sense of national identity and focused on the role and rights of the indigenous or the dichotomy of “civilization or barbarism”
Time of gradual increase in women’s education and writing that brought more women writers to the forefront
Modernismo, the Vanguards, and Boom:
A poetic movement whose founding text was the Nicaraguan Ruben Dario’s Azul, the first Latin American literary movement to influence literary culture outside the region and was also the first truly Latin American Literature
Avant-Garde also vanguadria (fore-guard): was the next artistic movement after Modernismo which instituted a radical search for new, daring, confrontational themes and shockingly novel forms.
Boom: a literary movement of the 1960s and 1970s, after World War II, writers outside traditional narrative structures, embracing non-linearity and experimental narration, launched Latin American Literature onto the world stage, distinguished by daring and experimental novels.
Post-Boom and Contemporary Literature
Characterized by a tendency towards irony and humor and towards the use of popular genres.
Some writers felt the success of the Boom to be a burden and spiritedly denounced the caricature that reduces Latin American literature to magical realism.
Contemporary literature is vibrant and varied, ranging from the best-selling Paulo Coelho and Isabel Allende to the more avant-garde and critically acclaimed work of writers such as Diamela Eltit, and Giannina Braschi
Authors
Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Gabo)
A famous Colombian novelist, short story writer, journalist, screenwriter, and a Nobel Prize winner in 1982 for his novels and short stories, in which the fantastic and the realistic are combined in a richly composed world of imagination, reflecting a continent’s life and conflicts
Had written the most endearing and memorable stories of magic realism in Latin American fiction:
One Hundred Years of Solitude,
Chronicle of a Death Foretold,
Love in the Time of Cholera, and
Autumn of the Patriarch
Received the Neustadt International Prize for Literature (1972) and Nobel Prize in Literature awardee (1982).
Carlos Fuentes Macias
A Mexican novelist and essayist
Was described by The New York Times as “one of the most admired writers in the Spanish Speaking World” and an important influence in the Latin American Boom while The Guardian called him “Mexico’s most celebrated novelist”
Literary honors include the Miguel de Cervantes Prize, Belisario Dominguez Medal of Honor (1999) as Mexico’s highest award and was often a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature, though he never won
The Death of Artemio Cruz, Aura, Terra Nostra, The Old Gringo, and Christopher Unborn
Mario Vargas Llosa
A Peruvian Spanish writer whose commitment to social change is evident in his novels, plays, and essays
Awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature
An unsuccessful candidate for president in Peru year 1990
Wrote about this experience “A Fish in the Water: A Memoir” (1993) and became a citizen of Spain and was awarded the Cervantes Prize of the same year.
The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto (1997), The Feast of the Goat (2000, filmed 2005), The Way to Paradise (2003), The Bad Girl (2006), The Dream of the Celt (2010), The Discreet Hero (2013), and The Neighborhood (2016)
Made his acting debut at the Teatro Real in Madrid, where he appeared as a duke in Tales of the Plague his stage adaption of Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron.
Julia Alvarez
A Dominican-American poet, novelist, and essayist
One of the most significant Latina writers and she has achieved critical and commercial success on an international scale
Novels:
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (1991),
In the Time of the Butterflies (1994), and
Yo! (1997)
Her works as a poet include Homecoming (1984), and The Woman I Kept to Myself (2004) and Something to Declare (1998) was her autobiographical compilation as an essayist.
Won National Medal of Arts (2014) from President Obama
Works are influenced by her experiences as a Dominican in the United States and focuses heavily on issues of assimilation and identity
Known for works that examine cultural expectations of women both in the Dominican Republic and the United States, and for rigorous investigations of cultural stereotypes
Literary Genres
Hybrid Forms
Twitter Poetry – restricted to 140 characters only (CF Camlot’s Tickertext1)
Electronic Ballad – allows the reader-user to create remixes of voice, sounds, images, and special effects (Radical Karaoke)
Blog-Aforismos – a statement of truth or opinion expressed in a concise and witty manner posted in an online journal or informational website (Nava’s Minima Marabia Redux)
Hypertext Short Fiction – made up of non-sequential and interlinking lexia (Belen Gache’s Word Toys)
Blog Novelas – long narrative work of fiction with some realism posted in an online journal or informational website
Microrelatos – short stories not exceeding a page
Anipoemas – animated poems in which letters explain the content of the title of the poem
Hypertext Documentaries – an interactive documentary with multimedia platforms as hyperlinks for the users to choose their own narrative
Novela Colectiva – a novel proposal which bets on collective creation in a dynamic and novel way
Poemita – individual micropoems (Eduardo Navas’ Poemita)
Magical Realism
Magic which cannot be explained by typical notions of natural law
A realist description that stresses normal, common, everyday phenomena, which is then revised or "refelt" by the marvelous
Two views of reality which nearly merge or intersect
A challenged space
A broken identity at times; and,
Historic and timelessness of time
Themes
Degeneration of society, chaos, crisis, and its aftermath (Damiela Eltit’s Mano de obra; Pedro Mairal’s El año del desierto)
Memory and the coming of age of new generations moving away from testimonial approaches, where the past becomes a reinvented fiction and as de volver a casa
Writings about militant experiences during the 21st century (Carlos Gamero’s Un yuppie en la columnade Che Guevara; Federico Lorenz’s Montoneros o la ballenablanca)
Rewriting of the myths and heroes of history (Washington Cucurto’s La revolución vivida porlosnegros; Eduardo Galeano’s Espejos)
Violence and philosophy in the 21st century (Roberto Bolaño, Nocturno de Chile; Pola Oloixarac’s Teoríassalvajes)
New technologies and new subjectivities, showing characters between the real and the cyber worlds, strange worlds that are familiar to us in some way (Jorge Baradit, Trinidad; César Aira, El juego de los mundos; and Marcelo Cohen, Casa de Otro
AFRICAN LITERATURE
Generally refers to a comprehensive, complex and creative literature of and from Africa.
Categories of African literature:
Traditional oral literature of Africa
Literature written in indigenous African languages
Literature written in European languages
Oral literature:
Includes stories, dramas, riddles, histories, myths, songs, proverbs, and other expressions; frequently employed to educate and entertain children.
Oral histories, myths, and proverbs serve to remind whole communities of their ancestors' heroic deeds, their past, and the precedents for their customs and traditions.
Famous Authors
Chinua Achebe
A Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic.
One of the world’s most widely recognized and praised writers, often called the father of modern African literature.
Wrote some of the most extraordinary works of the 20th century.
Things Fall Apart (1958):
One of the most widely read books in the world, a devastating depiction of the clash between traditional tribal values and the effects of colonial rule, as well as the tension between masculinity and femininity in highly patriarchal societies.
Also a noted literary critic, particularly known for his passionate critique of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1899), in which he accuses the popular novel of rampant racism through its othering of the African continent and its people.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
A Nigerian writer whose works range from novels to short stories to nonfiction.
Works are primarily character-driven, interweaving the background of her native Nigeria and social and political events into the narrative.
Purple Hibiscus (2003):
A bildungsroman depicting the life experience of Kambili and her family during a military coup.
Americanah (2013):
An insightful portrayal of Nigerian immigrant life and race relations in America and the western world.
Works have been met with overwhelming praise and have been nominated for and won numerous awards, including the Orange Prize and Booker Prize.
Ayi Kwei Armah
A Ghanaian writer best known as an essayist, as well as having written poetry, short stories, and books for children.
Novels are known for their intense, powerful depictions of political devastation and social frustration in Armah’s native Ghana, told from the point of view of the individual.
Works were greatly influenced by French existential philosophers, such as Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, and as such hold themes of despair, disillusionment and irrationality.
The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968):
Centers around an unnamed protagonist who attempts to understand his self and his country in the wake of post-independence.
Mariama Ba
A Senegalese author and feminist, whose French language novels were translated into more than a dozen languages.
One of Africa’s most influential women authors, known for her powerful feminist texts which address the issues of gender inequality in her native Senegal and wider Africa.
So Long A Letter (1981):
Depicts simultaneously its protagonist’s strength and powerlessness within marriage and wider society.
Nuruddin Farah
A Somali novelist, who has also written plays for stage and radio, as well as short stories and essays.
Has written numerous plays, novels, and short stories, all of which revolve around his experiences of his native country.
From a Crooked Rib (1970):
Stems from a Somalian proverb “God created woman from a crooked rib, and anyone who trieth to straighten it, breaketh it”, and is a commentary on the sufferings of women in Somalian society through the narrative of a young woman trapped in an unhappy marriage.
Subsequent works feature similar social criticism, dealing with themes of war and post-colonial identity.
Literary Forms
Oral Literature
Myth: Explains the interrelationships of all things that exist, and provide for the group and its members a necessary sense of their place in relation to their environment and the forces that order events on earth.
Epics: Elaborate literary forms, usually performed only by experts on special occasions. They often recount the heroic exploits of ancestors.
Proverbs: Short, witty or ironic statements, metaphorical in its formulation which aim to communicate a response to a particular situation, to offer advice, or to be persuasive.
Written Literature
Novels, plays, poems, hymns, and tales developed from the 1950s onward.
Literature of testimony became prominent in the 1960s.
Texts moved away from the project of recuperating and reconstructing an African past and focus on responding to and revolting against colonialism and corruption.
More concerned with the present realities of African life and often represent the past negatively.