Top 10 Best African Authors and Writers
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 25 июл 2024
- African Literature has played a major role in changing and shaping perceptions about African people and our way of life for the longest time.
Welcome to 2nacheki, and today, we present the top 10 Best African Authors.
Remember to subscribe, and ring the notification bell, so that you do not miss any of our African videos.
Have an idea for an African top 10 video? Leave them in the comment section below.
Subscribe for more videos
~-~~-~~~-~~-~
Thank you for watching @2nacheki ! Kindly show us Africa is Watching by Liking, Subscribing, and Sharing this video with friends and family. To directly support us you can become a Channel Member, a Patreon, or Give us a Super Thanks.
Please contact us for tips, content submission, Ads, Takedowns, Collabos, Complaints, Reporting, and Inquiries.
~-~~-~~~-~~-~
Have you liked this yet? Please do then subscribe and share this video with friends and family .Want to help? Visit our PayPal page here goo.gl/AeR6Dt
Keep the videos coming.
We will😊
I read Chinua Achebe's things fall apart over 10 years ago. Its still in my head😁
It is a great book. Totally makes sense
Yeah, same here. Who can forget the Old Okonkwo(hope I spelt it right) and his stubborness😀👍
😂😂😂
We hear you
Himura Kenshin you spelt it well
Recommend a book for me
Absolutely spot on. Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka have to be in the top 3 while Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie must be in the top 10. Nigeria 🇳🇬 we hail thee
Thanks for watching and commenting. Please like and share with friends and family to support the channel. You can also support us here goo.gl/AeR6Dt
Chinua Achebe and ngugi wa thio'ngo are very influencial writers in the history
Yes they are
I agree with you. Ngugi should be third after Achebe & Soyinka. Thx
I like African Novels ..the culture my favorite Chinua achebe..things fall apart 👐🏾
We love his work too
Please do a top 10 African Novels by African authors for 2018.
Good idea
Nigeria will always be the best when it comes to writing am glad about this I'm proudly a Nigerian...
Have you read OF DEMONS & MEN by C.E.OCHEJA? He's not well known, but that's my number 1 author.
I am an Indian girl and I really love chinua Achebe books as it is in our syllabus I used to see my teacher teaches it as a film it seems
I really like that feeling
And i really love Africans
And I do have a African friends
Im doing English literature in university...just the other day i was telling a friend that the reason we fail so much is that we cannot relate culturally to Western novels and stories...i mean if i had to write an essay on Chinua Achebe's things fall apart i think ill do a perfect job but no im forced to do Great Expectations... #DecolonizeEducationNow ✊
Remofilwe From South Africa smart girl
A good point. But there has been great changes around. More African literature is being offered for studies now. Hopefully, it only gets better from there
Refuse to do great expectations - that is insanity. Do call me woman by Helen khuzwayo or change of tongue by Antje krog.
Rhonda Clark calm down man
@@obiechinaldo3648 what is he even talking about?? 🙄
Proudly African
Thanks for watching and commenting. Please like and share with friends and family to support the channel. You can also support us here goo.gl/AeR6Dt
African books are life😭😭can't live without them😍😍❤
We hear you. We are obsessed too😉
What about dagnacew worku of Ethiopia who wrote the thirtieth sun 😁
@@2nacheki Then do a list of must read African books. And let it contain African Child by Camara Laye.
Dr. Ayi Kwai Armah🇬🇭❤✊🏾
I love his novels!!!
We love his work too😊
Should be #1 in my opinion…
Chinua Achebe and Ngugi wa thiong'o are my best writers
They both have such great material
Very true. I have read almost all of their publications. Their books are superb. I would throw out Soyinka
Chimamanda and Chinua Achebe are my favourites 🙌🏾🇳🇬
Yess😉😉
Me either
Ogbuji Chibuike huh?
MAMA AFRICA
For this list, I agree, but my favorites are Dr. Cheikh Ante Diop & Yosef Ben-Jochanan.
As far as Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka are 1 and 2 this list is authentic.
😊😊😊
I agree with you
I can’t believe you forgot to mention the most well known African writers such as Nurradin Farah from Somalia and also Shiekh Anta Diop From Senegal.... these men have won so many awards and compliments around the world!
Was wondering where Diop was too.
Achebe deserves his accolades, but I find his work somewhat overrated. For example, Ayi Kwei Armah’s works are farrrrrr more impactful and relevant. Two Thousand Seasons alone is a MASTERPIECE of writing with not a single line of wasted prose, but is so confronting to many readers that it’s subject matter is hardly ever spoken on - as the reviewer ALSO glossed over the content of Armah’s works yet devoted space to nearly every other writers’. Thiongo’s political, cultural and philosophical works, Diop’s anthropological, economic and political work, and Armah’s searing analysis of past and present African culture are the 3, 2, 1 for me of Continental African writers.
Achebe & Soyinka & Ngugi are the most known authors in Africa 🔥
@@blessingashanti7039 that is actually true
@@blessingashanti7039
truth hurts huh, kid?
Chimamanda ngozi adichie is also known
Chimamanda is very popular also
"THINGS FALL APART" Chinua Achebe,,, it has been many years since I read 📚 it. I knew he would be famous from then. A great work! No doubt.
All things fall apart, the beautiful ones are not yet born.. My favorites back in middle school in South Africa
Very good ones!!!
Very good books indeed
Africans are still as sleep when chinu Achebe wrote things fall apart... I love Nigeria 🇳🇬🇳🇬🇳🇬🇳🇬🇳🇬🇳🇬 African best author
We did that book in High school in South Africa...We do know Chinu very well hes number 1 on my African list
@@REMOFILWE780 I love you for saying the truth.. 🇳🇬🇳🇬🇳🇬🇳🇬
It did help a lot of people wake up and rise
He was ahead of his time.
Nice muscles baby💪🏾
Proud to see Ghana's Dr. Ayi Kwei Armah, one of the tallest on the literary horizon🇬🇭✌😍
I have visited Africa several times for evangelism. Some of my congregation were beginning to form reading groups to discuss books by Chinua Achebe, etc, and that is really good for their English. I have read only one book: the Bible :-). I have subscribed.
I Favor , like and love this. All the way to the top my Great African Authors.
This is the sort of top ten list we should portray more about Afrika....writers are thinkers and revolutionaries who could shape our societies.
Thanks for watching and commenting. Please like and share with friends and family to support the channel. You can also support us here goo.gl/AeR6Dt
Read three of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’ s books & she is by far one of the greatest writers I have come across. Achebe’s book “All Things Fall Apart” is so profound and timeless. It’s a subtle didactic approach to how Africans and those living in the diaspora communities, should know and understand history. For what we were introduced to was not original to our beliefs...
We are glad you enjoy their work
2nacheki You’re amazing! keep up the excellent work.
We will😊😊
Great, great....Arthur's I have never heard about, I'm not of the African diaspora, this is great, it's imperative for us to have our Arthur's book out in the world, to tear those narrative apart and kill them with truth...(history)...
Very well said.
Chinue Achube is an international influencer, he is hero for all African writers. We showed the whites that we can to do better then them. I like his creativity and imagination. I shall meet to him one time Insha Allah. May Allah give him good heath and good life.
You should take that white lady off and add Jaramogi oginga Odinga for the book Not yet Uhuru(freedom)
The list features authors with a variety of works..
U forget nuuradin farah from Somalia 🇸🇴
We appreciate your feedback. Thanks for watching and commenting
My best book by Chinua Achebe is Anthills Of Savannah.
Good list learnt about some new writers
Glad you did😊
Couldn't agree with you more ... much love and respect to our authors.
Thank you very much !
You should have added honourable mentions for authors who didn't make the top 10 list but are still good e.g. Zakes Mda from South Africa
We appreciate your feedback. Thanks for watching and commenting
Tsitsi Dangarembga from Zimbabwe also deserves a mention
Don Mattera as well.
Mariama Ba, Tayib Saleh, Cheik Hamidou Kane, Ben Okri.
Mr Achebe thing fall part
You love the book?
An African classic
Chinua achebe 😊😊😊🇺🇬 things fall apart
support africa from philippines
Thanks for taking the time to comment. Please share our channel to support us or you can also directly support us here: www.patreon.com/2nacheki
Great list
Thanks for watching and commenting 😊
Keep doing the good work.
Excellent. thank you.
Thanks for watching and commenting. Please like and share with friends and family to support the channel. You can also support us here goo.gl/AeR6Dt
African philosophers I like it keep on going harder than that I wish all Africa be like this 🤔🤷🏽♂️
😊😊😊
Thank you for this video🩷
I wish, we could write more about our African culture especially moral values that are a foundation of our existence to date.
Love this list ❤️
Glad you do😊
This is gold at It's pureist
Naguib Mahfouz was an Egyptian writer who won the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature. He is regarded as one of the first contemporary writers of Arabic literature, along with Tawfiq el-Hakim, to explore themes of existentialism.he should be on the list
..for all you who wish to read a n intriguing love &mystery story in pre-colonial African village setting,will absolutely love Elechi Amadi’s ‘The Concubine’ .
Hello, thank you for your video. Please make a video on African scientists or African Inventors. Thank you
One day i want to be like ngugi wathiog"o my low modal
The Cameroonian Mongo Befi belongs to this group. James Ngugi should be third. Much luv
We appreciate your feedback. Thanks for watching and commenting
Wole Sonyika's hair😩😍
Lol
😂😂😂😂
3 Nigerians made the list and later small babes like Ghana will be competing with a giant like Nigeria. Insult!!!
@@kevinanith2713 lmfao Nigerians are so insecure because of Ghana. Keep telling themselves that they're so great and better while also always trying to compete with "small babies" like Ghana who are actually doing way better than them, especially their country. The jealousy ooo. If you don't shut your mouth. That's why people don't like you arrogant scammers and bleachers.
@@blessingashanti7039 Ashanti Ashanti Ashanti, how many times did I call you. Hold your ear and listen carefully, Nigerians don't know that Ghana exist. End of discussion.
Here we go again! Fighting over... nothing! Why don't we keep it positive, huh?
Thank you 2nacheki for sharing!
Alongside with the great Wole Soyinka (author and activist), Chinua Achebe with the unbelievable "Things Fall Apart":and so on, i suggest researching on some of the precursors of African litterature and those whose contributions shouldn't be forgotten, and must still be on shelves for our generations to read: Leopold Leopord, Sedar Senghor (activist and poet, in his college age, place Quartier Latin, France), Mongo Beti, Alexis Kagame in La Philosophie Bantu de l'Etre; least but not the last, perhaps the genius that Africa will not see often again, Check Anta Diop , researcher, scientist, and ethno-anhropologist who wrote the highly accalaimed L'Origine du Noir.
Note that there more authors who didn not survive, because their short stories or books or poetry, etc were not distributed enough or translated into either local languages or other foreign languages. Besides, African books had to be published in France, Britain or elsewhere, in the West, thus being limited to a more foreign audience and the few Africans in the Diaspora but not Africans, on the continent.
I hope this will enlighten some people, and, for God's sake, stop insults and fights on RUclips. I even believe that it disrespectful to do so!
Peace to y'all!
Thanks for watching and commenting. Please like and share with friends and family to support the channel. You can also support us here goo.gl/AeR6Dt
I can't help myself from thinking that this classification is bias. Cause you guys enlisted only one writer from francophone Africa. I read in French as well as in English. I adore Chimamanda's work of which I've read Half of a Yellow Sun, Americanah and Purple Hibiscus. Achebe is a master when it comes to writing we all agree on that. Things fall Apart is my best of his works but I've also read There was a Country. I also like Woke Soyinka's The Lion and the jewel.
No C. A. Diop on this list? His works near single-handedly shifted anthropology on Africa and Egyptology. Plus his various economic and political commentaries.
I also inspected Altaye Saleh from Sudan , he wrote many novels but the famous one is his novel Season of migration to the North. He had been working for the BBC for decates and wrote his novel while he was in London. Really he deserve to be in this list.
Ayi Kwei Armah is my favorite, but seriously, what of Ousmane Sembene? Then there’s Mariama Ba and Buchi Emecheta. !!!
The list is so long, we had to leave others out. Not that their work is of lesser value
Totally understand! Sembene ... probably deserves his own episode as not only a major novelist, but also as a great African filmmaker. Good to see some of the younger, more contemporary writers on the list. Several in fact that I was not aware of. Currently reading “She Would Be King”, it’s Liberian writer Wayétu Moore’s debut novel. Love your channel. Keep up the great work.
We hope to do a top 25 list soon to give more room for other authors too. We greatly appreciate your support 😊
Hi, could you try to publish top 10 African leaders who helped South Africa with their fight against apartheid? Best regards from Somalia.
The only three you got right are..Chinua ,Ngugi wathiongo and Wole Soyinka.The rest are still in their literature diapers,your list has left real giants of African literature and that's a clear indicator you're new and still learning African literature.Keep trying the good work.
I need to read a book by Wole Soyinka😭🇳🇬
Sonyika* your bum ass doesn't even read books period. Hush.
Blessing Ashanti no mumu, SOYINKA. I was right and your dumb ass was wrong, as usual. Google his name and you’ll see it’s SOYINKA not Sonyika😂. You think you know everything when truly you don’t know jack shit! Looooool now run along, stop stalking me and edit your comment because YOU look silly.
Blessing Ashanti Lool this mumu said ‘Sonyika’ with so much confidence 😂😂. How about you hush?? Mtchewww
@@lilmizzije blame the creator of the video hun, you still forgot his middle name🤷🏾♀️ my opinion and comment still stays, bleach bottle😘
@@lilmizzije "as usual" keep dreaming😩🤣 you been dragged and got proved wrong multiple times. Now move you hideous scary thing🙄
Things fall apart... By chinu Achebe... Covers the whole of Africa... Including Europe.... Proudly Nigerian 🇳🇬🇳🇬🇳🇬🇳🇬
Yes it does
I am a Sierra Leonean but Achebe is the best. His book, things fall apart is an inspiration to modern African literature
Great comment. Make sure to watch our other videos. Want to help? Become a Patreon today www.patreon.com/2nacheki
Good list. Everyone should also read "Homegoing" by Yaa Gyasi. It's such a great book.
You must first hail your recognized Ghanaian writer who is part of this list before you suggest the less famous ones.
First I wish to Thank you for remembering us (early pioneers) and for your very enlightening presentation.
I am an Artist, Craftsman and Korean war veteran (1950/51)
DURING THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION of the early 1960’s I became disillusioned with the social and political situation in America and decided to relocate to Africa, and in 1965 I left for Ghana with less than $300 in my pocket and a return ticket, which I later cashed in.
On arrival in Ghana I was welcomed by Tom Feelings, one of President Kwame Nkrumah's advisors, and introduced to other expatriates living in Ghana at the time. During the 1960s prior to Nkrumah overthrower, the African American expatriates living there included Pan-Africanist, artists like; Tom Feelings, John W. Ray, Herman Bailey, Ted Pontifiet, Leroy Mitchell, & educators like Julian Mayfield, Maya Angelou, Nell I. Painter’s parents, both educators (mother /father), Alice Windom, Dr. Shirley Graham DuBois, and few entrepreneurs and others. Our selected spokesman was Dr. Robert Lee, a dentist.
After being adopted by an Ashanti-Paramount Chief, Nana kwaku Duah (1966) and given the name “Kojo Acheampong.” I spent the next eleven (11) years living in Ghana, often traveling to Togo and the Ivory Coast to market my jewelry. I earned a living by learning and making jewelry using traditional designs which I carved from cow-horns and ivory and fully immersing myself in the culture.
On my return to the United States in 1976, I was able to contribute to the growing interest in African art and culture.
I have publishes several books.. www.amazon.com/Curtis-James-Morrow/e/B074TWSKKW…
It was a BORN AGAIN EXPERIENCE.
ENJOY & we must continue to SHARE.
Again, Thank U much.
Some please explain how the things fall apart story like?
Kies Please look for the book, it is really interesting and informative. I enjoyed reading it in the late sixties as one of the books for my high school English Literature final examinations!
Just find it and read it. It is a lovely insightful book.
Thanks guys I am about to do it.
Things fall is a novel set in pre colonial Nigeria with the arrival of Europeans in the nineteenth century. Chinua Achebe portrays the clash of cultures (Igbo & British) and how this affects the Nigerian people in the long run! It’s an amazing book and we as Africans whose countries were colonised will easily be able to relate and form a deeper understanding of the novel. I suggest that you have a read, it’s very interesting.
I love Africa
Thanks for watching and commenting. Please like and share with friends and family to support the channel. You can also support us here goo.gl/AeR6Dt
Can you do Top 10 African Historical songs
Historical songs??
yes please
Historical in what sense?
lemme say revolutionary songs in short
You overlooked Ferdinand Oyono Cameroon , Camara Laye of Guinea and others.
Good to know
Thanks for watching and commenting. Please like and share with friends and family to support the channel. You can also support us here goo.gl/AeR6Dt
Nuruddin Farah is a Somali novelist. He has also written plays both for stage and radio, as well as short stories and essays. Since leaving Somalia in the 1970s he has lived and taught in numerous countries, including the United States, England, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Sudan, India, Uganda, Nigeria and South Africa.
We appreciate your feedback. Thanks for watching and commenting
You slipped a Caucasian in. It was ok but and invaded who wrote on what their people has set up and doing to the people they invaded don't make them your people or the people of the land.
Thanks for watching and commenting. Please like and share with friends and family to support the channel. You can also support us here goo.gl/AeR6Dt
How can I track the book .. Girl from abroad by Mwangi Ruheni
Dinaw Mengestu " All our Names" a great writer.
Top 10 leaves out a lot of good writers. Tsitsi Dangarembga makes my list.
We hope to make a top 25 list soon😊
Chinua , my favorite and only. Who wrote the Great ponds?Elechi Amadi.The second position should have gone to him. Stop the jeolousy.
Top 10 african children's fantasy books. I loved the ear, the eye, and the arm even though I think it was written by a white woman. I would like to know more titles in that genre.
We Appreciate your suggestion. We'll look into it
Nurrudini Farah should be among them. I don't know where you can fix him but that guy has blown me away with his writings.
Alain Mabanckou from the Republic of Congo( Brazza-ville )
Who is here for Ngugi wationg'o
What about Naguib Mafouz and Ben Okri?
China Achebe >things fall apart. And Bessie Head > Maru. Both read in my high school year. Stuck till today.
Non fiction: Ayaan Hirsi Ali has done an outstanding work.
Great comment. Make sure to watch our other videos. Want to help? Become a Patreon today www.patreon.com/2nacheki
Best african writers in english language that should be the title
Thanks for taking the time to share your opinion .Please share our channel to support us or you can also directly support us here: www.patreon.com/2nacheki
Number 7 is not African but European!🤣 STOP!!!
😂😂😂
Two of them are not from Africa
If i cannot relate culturally to their stories then its not African
@Pecu Alex say who? Africa is only for African's.
@Pecu Alex Black Americans aren't Americans and Black French people aren't French. They African period. And this white woman is clearly an European woman.
Do you have any suggestions about African authors who write detective novels? I am in. search to read a detective novel from every country in the world in English or Spanish. Your suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Enrique
I wish that I could -(somehow) = "support all the AfriCAN (And Asian)_writers/Authors: as much as possABLE!!" (Especially; on/for = "writing Wednesdays!!" And so 4th).
Sierra Leone we go
It's said how Literature in Portuguese is usually ignored. I highly recommend the Mozambican writer Paulina Chiziane. I hope she's been translate at least to English.
Stop lying , number 7 is not African but you put her there forgetting best africans eg Dambudzo marechera and many more .
its like talking about novels and skip William shakespear
@Pecu Alex..... you said it right , you said black American . so you should say European African . they don't call themselves Africans they call themselves Europeans .
Its a waste of time to think whites are African they don't see themselves as African they only say they are Africans when they are stealing land . wake up and smell the coffee.
All French black people or European blacks they know they are not Europeans . one day they will deported . they are Europeans when they do something like winning world cup and or risk their life on saving white people .
@@herbertmapeall3445 preach brother he's all over trolling with that bullshit
Thanks for watching and commenting. Please like and share with friends and family to support the channel. You can also support us here goo.gl/AeR6Dt
Just coz you like one writer doesn't make them the best, and besides, skin color is irrelevant. Nationality is what matters. If you accept yourself and identify yourself as African, accepted our ways and lived amongst us, you are as white as snow, why should we deny you that.
Williàm Shakespeare was a play writer not a novelist.
Cheikh Ante Diop & Yosef Ben-Jochanan. Two genius Afrikan writers.
Thanks for watching and commenting. Please like and share with friends and family to support the channel. You can also support us here goo.gl/AeR6Dt
What about abdulrazak gurhan from Tanzania?
🇳🇬🇳🇬
😊😊
You forgot to give a shout out to Alex La Guam: A Walk in the Night, a collection of stories, In the Fog of the Seasons' End, The time of the Butcherbird, Stone Country and A Threefold Cord, all express life under the Apartheid Regime. He also edited, Apartheid, a Collection of Writings on South African Racism by South Africans. He was arrested several times and imprisoned and was involved as a defendant in the South African Treason Trial.
That should read Alex La Guma
We appreciate your feedback. Thanks for watching and commenting
Thanks for sharing ! Alain Mabanckou is from Congo Brazzaville and not from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Writers and authors from the French speaking Africa:
-William Sassine, from Guinea-conakry
-Léopold Sedar Senghor, from Sénégal
-Fatou Diome, from Sénégal
-Bernard Dadié, from Côte d'Ivoire
-Ahmadou kourouma, from Côte d'Ivoire
- Sony Labou Tansi, from Congo- Brazzaville
-Amadou Hampaté Ba, from Mali
-Thierno Monembo, from Guinea-conakry
- Camara Laye, from Guinea-conakry
- Kangni Alem, from Togo
And many others....
We will have a list specifically for them. Thanks for watching and commenting
@@2nacheki lol then you should title your video the best African writers. smh, yall think Africa is limited only for the anglophone.
Where's Clarice LISPECT
And why is Ntate Zakes Mda not in the list?
What about arabic writers from Algeria, Égypte,....?
Two lady's there are not from Africa.
Africa Only Africans we Africans should learn to share with one another. Believe me, people like you can not even share with their brother or sister, and yet you’re clamoring for Africa for Africans.
The best gift you could give to Africans is to educate them.
So where are they from?
Adetomi Akintitan There was a great kingdom in Africa before the white people came and stole, destroyed and crushed everything. How possible? Because we want to have it all and don't want to share. Europeans came to Africa and saw the first civilization ever made by mankind and they went back and informed one another so that they could join hand develop with lots of ideas.
My main point is that we have to share with one another, from brother to foreigner to make the world a better place for all.
@@2nacheki from Europe period.
@@ositaurama2243 @osita That s the attitude that got Africans into colonization and slavery.Do you know how historically and to the present are being treated by foreign races in foreign lands.This Africa for everyone is nonsense or black people for people of color is nonsesnse,Africa for Africans only.
Alot of Africans simply like authors who are popular: Art is subjective: your “best” writers may not be mine. I don’t follow too many African authors, but I like writers like Ben Hinson and Kwei Quartey, both from Ghana/Nigeria who write more action/thriller/suspense books.
Being a fan doesn't mean unconditionally loving something , it's to understanding the reason you do love that thing And being honest with yourself if this reason disappeare.
After reading "decolonizing the mind" by Ngugi Wa Thiong'o , and thought about the actual literary situation , I realized something about african literature and the choice of the language: it's all about selling as much as possible.
When reading an argument about the literature in European languages (french or English) , it's always about reaching the biggest audience . It's always about reaching an Audience of people in Paris , London or New York ; about lure them and making them read your book .
It's never about talking to the local and only to tge local about their problems and issues of their society .
It seems like writing in a language only understood by locals , having a domestic audience like an average Vietnamese or japanese author is a kind of humiliation.
And also another thing about the african literature in comparison with the ones of other continents of the old world it's that : the African literature exist .
In reality there's no european literature , no Asian , there are the *Many* literatureS of Europe and the *Many* literatureS of Asia .
I refer not to the body of written and oral texts produced by storytellers on and from each continent-but rather, to the category.
European or Asian Literature is an empty designation, as is Asian Literature, European Literature, Latin American Literature, South American Literature, North American Literature, and so forth. My very basic assertion is that the practice of categorizing literature by the continent from which its creators come is past its prime at best. Our dogged insistence upon doing so, in the case of the African continent foremost, betrays a disregard both for the complexities of African languages, peoples , cultures and the creativity of African authors.
When talking about the literatures of europe , it never about a consistent thing , but rather a lot of literatures in languages , the gender , and the subjects they talk about.
We talk about Portuguese , french , German literature , even languages not widely spoken in the world have their Literature like Catalonian , slovene , Lithuanian , Norwegian literature , etc. All depending on the language and having different genres .
This is to a pretty diversity both linguistic and cultural in European in terms of literature , while the designation of the African literature and the will of its existence (instead of the many literatures in the many languages of africa) make just lead to the uniformization (and getting replaceable) of the works , the "literature" becomes monolithic and monotonous both linguistically and thematically.
The authors of the African literature want to be famous , and for that , their fate is between the hands of the readers and literary institutions of the cities above . The fact they become famous or good and studied in the schools and colleges in africa depends on the decision of the audience and institutions of Paris, London or New York .
This lead them to write in 2 particular ways:
• Either they write in a way of copying the European way if writing.
• Either they write in a very ridiculous , stereotypical and embarassing way more than disconnected but insulting , describing a continent , 54 countries , 1 billion people stupid , alcoholic and lazy People , girls suffering from genital mutilation , starving children and helped by European NGO camps consequences of war, and using the words Africa , darkness , Safari on the title of the book , using the picture of someone in massai , dogon , zulu clothes or a pygmy on tge cover of the book.
Making that this kind of book that become famous , that will be taught in many schools in africa , wilk be just the western idea of africa than Africa itself.
For the second point, I talk about the people , not the governments. The people (the country) and tge government (the leaders) are 2 completely different things .
Criticizing the government , its abusive actions , its ineffectiveness , its bribery , its corruption is the only way to move forward , having a better future , and to make the society transform itself (even if bribery is a fact of life or a common practice , that doesn't mean it's a good thing and we must fight that kind of thing) .
But most of the case of the second point don't criticize the governments , but rather the people and saying how great the western readers are ,and how dumb the local people are , but never taking care about the problem of the local people or thinking a way to resolve them.
The second case ignore the real problems for focusing on humiliating the local people in order to lure wester readers.
You can't also say :" most of people must speak English for to have at the same time both a foreign and domestic audience at the first hit" .
That wouldn't resolve the problem because it'd go from peoples who can't read each other to peoples who ignore eachother.
The book would be drowned in an ocean of English books and they'd distance mentally the readers from the writers and their environment . Peoples would have reasons to read local books , because they'd think they're low quality books and the western ones as hight quality books .
If you noticed by the Western audience , it's this audience which would lead tg6e local audience to you (by the local people caring about what the western audience like and if it likes you , tge local audience too) .
How many authors are both criticizing the corruption in the education system , the police , the government , the Dept trap diplomacy of china and read only by a domestic audience?
How many authors talk about domestic problems , only for a domestic audience?
How many authors in the 54 countries of africa are both famous in and make like an average Latvian , Czech author?
Very few , and they are kept in the shadow.
It's a very big potential wasted potential .
With Europe having only 49 countries , Asia having 44 and Africa having 54 countries , with multiple languages ; it's africa that's supposed to have the biggest number of literatures and the most linguistic diverse . A little country like guinea should have more than 4 literatures .
It could have a strong Zulu , Yoruba , Xhosa , fulfulde , mandinka , wolof .
There could be more literatures in Nigeria itself than in all Europe ; they could each become very strong , autonomous , independent and interact each other by translation but unfortunately it's the opposite which happens .
You made a some valid points.
Ngugi should be at least #3...brilliant writer
And Farah from Somalia should also be on the list
We appreciate your feedback. Thanks for watching and commenting
Chinua Achebe!
😊😊