Winner of the Noma Prize at the 1980 Frankfurt Book Fair An intense and poised novel in the form of a letter written by Ramatoulaye,
who has recently been widowed. The letter, addressed to her old friend
Aissatou, is a record of her emotional survival after her husband's abrupt
decision to take a second wife. His choice is Binetou, the best friend
of their young daughter. Top of Form | African Literature
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Writer Biyi Bandele-Thomas, one of Britain's hottest young literary
talents,doesn't pull any punches when he writes about the institutionalized
brutality of his Nigerian homeland. But when he writes about the "politics
of violence" a deft mixture of satire and poetic fantasy gradually
introduces the unwary to the full horrors inflicted by the military, the
police, and the politicians. Told in a series of flashbacks depicting two
brothers' reflections on their lives together, this novel is a tragi-comedy--hugely
entertaining but ultimately a nightmare. "Biyi is a play-wright with a barmy Beckettian vision, a poet and
a magnificent novelist... He writes with an old man's wisdom. Yet Biyi,
one of Nigeria's greatest voices, is only 24. His talent isn't precocious.
It is masterly." -- City Limits Top of Form | African Literature
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"...this is very much a story of Africa: exotic, sprawling, overcrowded
and bizarre." -- The Observer The relationship between a student and a literary teacher provides the
framework for this clever novel-within-a-novel. A teacher, Maude, is enamored
of a girl in a bar. He writes the story of her former boyfriend, and Maude's
student is the first person to read the novel. Capturing modern Nigeria
with its decaying standards, militarism, and poverty, Bandele-Thomas's
prose also yearns on every page for something good and worth holding onto
in society. Top of Form | African Literature
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Medza is sent off to retrieve a villager's wife who has run off with
a man from another tribe. Amongst his best appreciated and funniest novels.
Top of Form | African Literature
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In Bomba the girls who are being prepared for Christian marriage live
together in the women's camp. Gradually it becomes apparent that the local
church men have been using the local girls for their own purposes. Top of Form | African Literature
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Ulli Beier has collected and, where necessary, translated into English
creation myths from West, East, Central, and North Africa. Top of Form | African Literature
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Calixthe Beyala was born in Cameroon in 1961. Now living in Paris,
she has already published four novels in France and is regarded as one
of the most promising young francophone writers of today. Mother of two
children, her great passions are Africa and fighting for women's freedom.
Translated by Marjolijn de Jaeger Set in the grim world of urban prostitution, this book gives voice to
the multitude of women trapped in African ghettos. Ateba is quiet and unassuming,
taking care of her aunt's needs. But she craves the mother who abandoned
her, and creates imaginary women to talk to. Then her world is shaker:
Jean, the lodger forces a relationship on her; and old neighborhood prositute
dies; and her best friend is killed by a botched abortion. Caught between
traditional values, male demands, and the need to survive, Ateba seeks
to end the tyranny of men, whom she holds responsible for this suffering. Top of Form | African Literature
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Belleville is the African immigrant quarter of Paris, where seven year-old
Loukoum lives with his family. While his father spends time having affairs
and drinking in the cafe with fellow Africans, his father's two wives look
after the children at home. Loukoum becomes the recorder of the changes that gradually impinge on
his family. The problems of racism, the hypocrisy of adult sexual relationships,
and the influence French society has on African traditions are all innocently
and uncomprehendingly denoted by the youngster. It is, however, the discovery
that his real mother is a prostitute that sets Loukoum on a journey of
greater awareness. The author deftly uses comic interludes to illustrate the pathos of
the immigrant situation, but also to underline one's capacity for survival.
Top of Form | African Literature
Index | African Writers Index | E-mail us! Steve Biko was one of the foremost figures in South Africa's struggle for
liberation from the apartheid regime. Murdered by the police when he was only
30, he had already established him self as a n important leader through his work as
a political activist and his analysis on Black Consciousness.
first published in 1978 I Write What I Like is a
collection of Biko's lectures, articles, letters, and trial testimonies that was smuggled out of
South Africa after Biko's murder. This 1996 edition was published to coincide with 50th
anniversary of Steve Biko's birth. This edition includes a preface by Archbishop Desmond
Tutu, who states, "It is good that there is this new edition to enable us to savour the inspired
words of Steve Biko- perhaps it could just spark a Black renaissance. Top of Form | African Literature
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Now living in the UK and teaching in London, W. P. B. Botha was born
in South Africa of Afrikaner working class background. He was educated
there, but was forced to leave after refusing to do military service.
"You will become part of village life, which mean they will become
responsible for you, but also that you will be responsible for them. That
is what we understand by the word wantok." Working in the development program in the Pacific region, Richard Green
finds himself increasingly embroiled in local feuds. His idealistic notion
of helping the islanders disintegrates as his neo-colonial role becomes
apparent. Instead, he is taken back to memories of his early--and devastating--years
in colonial Kenya, bringing a dawning realization that he can never truly
be wantok. Top of Form | African Literature
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A disenchanted cynic, Doyle believes his father repudiated his origins
to become part of the "Protestant ascendancy" in South Africa.
Now he doesn't want to take sides, get involved. He yearns to be part of
the audience and not -- as he is forced to become -- a writer of the script.
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Charlotte Bruner is Emeritus Professor of Literature at the University
of Iowa. She has been involved in compiling many books and was the Africa
Editor of the Feminist Companion to English Literature. She produced a
weekly radio series "First Person Feminine" for over six years
in the U.S. This popular anthology contains short stories and extracts from novels
by women all over Africa. The pioneer West Africans write to arouse national
pride for their countries' independence. Southern African activists raise
their voices against political and economic repression and racism. Northern
African women seek to lift their veils to emerge from the enforced domesticity
and female servitude. The experience, the goal, the language, the audience,
differ from one writer to another. However, all their works affirm, as
Doris Lessing wrote: "that filter which is a woman's way of looking
at life has the same validity as that filter which is a man's way."
Contributors: Mabel Dove Danquah; Adelaide Casely-Hayford; Efua Sutherland;
Ama Ata Aidoo; Mariama Ba; Flora Nwapa; Buchi Emecheta; Martha Mvungi;
Barbara Kimenye; Charity Waciuma; Hazel Mugot; Grace Ogot; Olive Schreiner;
Doris Lessing; Nadine Gordimer; Miriam Tlali; Amelia House; Bessie Head;
Fadhma Amrouche; Marguerite Amrouche; Assia Djebar; Alifa Rifaat; Latifa
el-Zayat; Andree Chedid. Top of Form | African Literature
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A contemporary selection of 22 African women's short stories that vividly
portray the everyday concerns of women's lives. The stories, divided into
sections from north, south, east and west, cover such themes as the exploitation
of serving girls, the experience of women behind veils, enduring friendships,
the achievement of social power, independence of thought, and the affirmation
of personal identity. These are new writers recording the new Africa with
a fresh perspective. Top of Form | African Literature
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Send comments & questions to: africanwriters@yahoo.co.uk
This page has had,
African Writers Index
English, 
French, Bilingual, 
Mariama BĪ
So Long a Letter
Biyi BANDELE-THOMAS The Sympathetic Undertaker and Other Dreams
The Man Who Came in from the Back of Beyond
Mongo BETI Mission to Kala
Translated by Peter Green, Prix Saint-Beuve
The Poor Christ of Bomba
Translated by Gerald Moore
Edited by Ulli Beier The Origin of Life and Death
Calixthe BEYALA 
The
Sun Hath Looked Upon Me
Loukoum
The Little Prince of Belleville
Steve Bantu Biko 
I Write What I Like
W.P.B. Botha Wantok
The Reluctant Playwright
Charlotte BRUNER 
Unwinding
Threads The Heinemann Book of African Women's Writing
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