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Essay / History and Development of African Literature
Literature began to evolve since people began to write and express their ideas. Not everything expressed in words is considered a work of art, but when ideas are collected and written down in an organized manner, it is considered literature. As human life began to evolve from basic forms to the extraordinary, literature also gradually developed and took on many forms which paved the way for the enrichment of knowledge of the human through the writings. Say no to plagiarism. Get a Custom Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayLiterature is classified according to a variety of systems, including language, history, national origin, genre, and subject. Historical, social and political events have been reflected in the writings of many authors. Literature merges and mixes with people's lives. One of these living literatures which makes its existence known to the world is African literature. During decolonization, various African people began to evolve as writers to make their voices heard as a representation of the African people. The division into African literature provides an overview of African writing that resolves the confusion that might arise regarding the variation in writing, style, language, presentation and perspective on African countries. The division includes African literature written by Westerners in Western languages, African literature written by Africans in Western languages, African literature written by Africans in African languages, and African oral traditions. African literature written by Westerners does not present a positive image of Africa and Africans. . These authors are usually non-Africans who have spent their days living in Africa for a particular period of time and who have mentioned in their works a particular incident or movement that prevailed during their visit to Africa. African literature began its waves during the pre- or post-African Independence War. There is a movement called “African Awakening”. This period brought a change in the minds of the people of Africa: at least politically, they should not be ruled by anyone. Students like Léopold Sédar Senghor from Senegal, Aimé Césaire from Martinique and Léon Damas from French Guiana settled into 'African Awakening' with their philosophy 'La Négritude'. Many other authors followed the “awakening” such as Camara Laye, Ousmane Soce, Bernard Dadie, Ousmane Sembene, VY Mudimbe, Ake Loba, Cheick Hamidou Kane, Olympe Bhely-Quenum, Ferdinand Oyono, Tchicaya U'Tamsi, Mongo Beti, Birago Diop and Zamenga Batukezanga. Also in this group were African writers who wrote in Portuguese, such as Agostino Neto, Angola's first president, Pepetela, José Craveirinha, Luis Honwana and José Luandino Vieira of Angola. There are also authors from Portuguese-speaking literature such as Baltasar Lopes from Cape Verde. English-language African literature has prodigious writers such as Wole Soyinka, Cyprian Ekwensi, Chinua Achebe, Amos Tutuola, Gabriel Okara, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Flora Nwapa, Buchi Emecheta whose knowledge and contribution are irreplaceable and imperishable. The leading writers from East and South Africa are Grace Ogot, Okot P'Bitek, Nruddin Farah, Ngugi wa Thiong'O, Alex LaGuma, Dennis Brutus, Matsemela Manaka, Sipho Sepamla, Thomas Mfolo, etc. African authors like Ngugi wa Thiong 'O, Thomas Mfolo, Fagunwa, Mazisi Kunene, Ousmane Sembene and Cheikh Anta Diopencouraged the writing of African literature in African languages. Through their efforts and encouragement to write in their own language, they prevented the extinction of languages like Wolof, Swahili, Lingala, Kikongo, Hausa, Sesuto, Xhosa, Zulu, umbundu, kikuyu and many others. African oral literature or African oral tradition is true African literature. Every African contributes to his or her national or mother tongue. Griots, sculptors, painters and elders have all the information regarding their culture and traditions and pass it on to their children through songs, paintings, stories, myths, etc. In oral tradition, elders play the role of libraries whose experience and knowledge are passed from one generation to the next. There is a mixture of cultures and languages in a country as vast as Africa. Africa is often considered simple by scrutinizers who wanted to simplify it, generalize it, stereotype its inhabitants, but Africa is very complex. Five hundred years of European contact with Africa has produced a body of literature that embodies Africa in a very powerful way, and now the time has come for Africans to tell their own story. In many African states, ethnicity has been respected. In Somalia, political observers and analysts were more optimistic. Somalia is located in the eastern horn of Africa, bordered by Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya to the west and the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden to the east. It is a slightly smaller state than the state of Texas, with an area of 637,657 square kilometers (246,135 square miles). It is above all a desert country. In the 21st century, it has remained one of the few countries in the world without an effective central government, a situation which has existed since 1991. Due to its history of civil war and instability, lack of a recent census and Given the nomadic nature of a large part of its population, estimating the population becomes difficult. The Independent Republic of Somalia was established by the Union of the British and Italian Dependencies of Somaliland in 1960. The constitution adopted in 1961 provided for parliamentary democracy, in force in Somalia for eight years, with political parties and movements organized primarily around ethnic or clan groups. loyalties. The parliamentary period ended in 1969 with the coming to power of Siad Barre (1919-1995). Political repression, gross human rights violations, and clan and regional loyalties and rivalries are features of Siyad Barre's regime that have been manipulated for Siad Barre's benefit. advantage. As he began to play out Cold War politics, Siad Barre's regime began to decline and his country began to collapse. Even after Siad Barre left power, the country did not find a unified or stable succession. The armed militias that clashed prevented the establishment of a central government. These events not only led to a high number of deaths, but also destroyed the country's economic and social infrastructure. As the development of the central government failed, regional governments were formed with a Republic of Somaliland declaring its existence in the north and Puntland, which had been autonomous since 1998, taking steps towards its own independent republic in the central part of the country . country. A transitional national government was established for a period of three years after the Djibouti conference in 2000. However, its authority was not recognized in Somaliland or Puntland nor by several leaders offactions, and its official existence ended in August 2003. Further efforts were undertaken in 2004 to create a central government for Somalia. In January 2004, when warlords and politicians met in Kenya, they agreed to create a new Transitional National Assembly (TNA). Although conflicts erupt periodically, the TNA began functioning in August 2004. On October 10, 2004, Abdullah Yussuf Ahmed (1934), leader of Puntland, was elected President of Somalia by the TNA. In December, Ali Mohamed Ghedi (1952) was chosen as Prime Minister by the TNA. Because President Ahmed was denounced as a war criminal by Somaliland leaders immediately after his election and border relations between Ahmed's Puntland and Somaliland are hotly contested, optimism about the new government transition probably remains a rare commodity. Nuruddin Farah was born in 1945 in Baidoa, then Italian Somaliland. He comes from the Ogaden Darod clan. His family settled in Mogadishu to escape civil war after colonial powers deserted East Africa. Farah received a good education and speaks five languages fluently. Somalia did not have a written language until 1972. In the late 1960s, Farah came into possession of an English typewriter and has been writing in English ever since and the fact that he writes in English has as a result few Somalis have read his work. Nuruddin Farah decided to write in English while attending university in India after the release of a short story in his native Somali language. He published a series of award-winning novels depicting the suffering of the Somali people. He describes in compelling terms the dehumanizing effects of dependence imposed by foreign aid. He also wrote plays and short stories other than novels. He is the recipient of the prestigious Neustadt International Literature Prize in 1998, the Ulysses Letter Prize in Berlin, the Kurt Tuchlosky Prize in Sweden in 1991, the Premio Cavour in Italy in 1994 and the perennial candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. the books are rich in colorful language and metaphors. He often incorporates Somali parables and proverbs to make his point. Most of his works deal with the universal question of individual freedom. Aspects of Somali society – Islam, clan and kinship, family structure, gender regime, nation-state and dictatorship – that impinge on the individual freedom of Farah's characters and are therefore central of what he and his characters attempt to resist, reimagine, and transform. He also discusses the Somali language and oral poetry as a background to Farah's own consciousness and her use of the transformative power of language. Some argue that Farah's work presents a single, tightly integrated fictional world, whose unifying dimensions of setting, plot, character, and ideology they carefully emphasize. This should silence the few narrow-minded Somalis who said that Farah, because of his exile, was no longer Somali enough to draw real Somali characters. Its central concern for individual autonomy makes every aspect of identity and every social relationship (that between individuals, as well as that between each individual and the class, gender, family, clan, nation to which he or she belongs ) deeply political. At the heart of his work, the authors argue, is his characters' struggle to analyze, reimagine, transform and control their own identities. Its characters occupy very different positions within patriarchal power structures. Thus, the reader is introduced to the reflections of macho men andfeminists. The latter often assume unconventional gender roles and sometimes project themselves into the bodies or voices of women. The themes that dominate the narratives are: the claims of national, clan and personal identities; the place of women in an African society; dictatorships and the fight for human rights and freedom. Nuruddin Farah's stories – From a Crooked Rib, A Naked Needle, Maps and the trilogy including Sweet and Sour Milk, Sardines and Close Sesame – have become a metaphor for postcolonial Africa. Three themes dominate the stories: the demands of the national clan and personal identities; the place of women in an African society; dictatorships and the fight for human rights and freedom. What is so remarkable about his stories is how they move effortlessly through four realms of being: the domestic, the clan, the national, and the international. What is important is the fact that all areas are interconnected. They are related. So, for example, in Sweet and Sour Milk, domestic patriarchy is a reflection of national dictatorship; it is the domestic patriarch who insists that women and children know that their place is played by the great patriarch of the nation as a whole who insists on the unconditional obedience of all. The father who assumes that God has given him the right to do whatever he wants with his wives and children reflects the father of the family. nation, which also acts as if it were God's representative on earth. The oppression of women in the domestic domain is linked to that of dictatorship in the national domain. The question of who tells the story of the woman's destiny is thus linked to the question of who tells the story of the nation. Women's liberation cannot be separated from general questions of national liberation and human rights. For Nuruddin Farah, this is at the heart of all these issues, and he is probably the most important writer in Africa in feminist consciousness. This is not an awareness he acquired through his writing; it has been at the heart of his writing since his very first work, From a Crooked Rib. Farah's stories captured this Cold War period in African politics, and in this he is entirely unique. So what he has to say, although it is in Somalia, has echoes throughout the post-World War II global community. Anchored in the rhythms of life of the Somali people, his work nevertheless speaks for a continent and for the postcolonial world as a whole. Nuruddin Farah questions all oppressive actions against women, whether rooted in family, clan, nation, or in religion and political systems. He is a Somali writer, an African writer, an important voice of postcolonial modernism and who speaks to our times in very compelling prose. Farah's first novel, From a Crooked Rib, was published in 1970. The novel focuses on the harsh treatment of women in Somali society. The book is told through the eyes of a young nomadic girl. Her strong feminist stance makes her writing unique among male African writers. Siyad Barre. The novel presents a political rather than sociological study of the subordinate role of Somali women and the effects of urbanization during the 1950s, indicative of Farah's commitment to social issues. The central character of the novel is Ebla, a pastoral woman from the Ogaden who desires emancipation. of its subordinate role in Somali society. Ebla first runs away from her clan to the town of Belet Wene because she refuses to accept her arranged marriage to an old man named Giumaleh. Once installed with her cousin Gheddi, Ebla however learns that, for.