AFRICAN ARTSLITERATURE AND THEATRE

Literatures in African languages Evidence of the indigenous written literatures of Africa is in some regions ancient and in others comparatively recent. The earliest written African language known is the now-dead language of Ge'ez, from Ethiopia (see below Ethiopian languages). The Latin and Arabic alphabets have had marked influence on developments in written African literature. Arabic was brought to the continent in the 7th century, when the Arabs conquered North Africa, while the Latin alphabet was introduced by Christian missionaries largely in the 19th century. In West Africa the beginnings of indigenous written literature are linked to the campaigns in the early 1800s of the Fulani reformer Shaykh Usman dan Fodio; in East Africa the earliest extant Swahili text dates from 1652. In southern Africa the history of the earliest written literature, Xhosa, is linked to the printing press of the Lovedale Missionary Institution set up by the Glasgow mission in the 1820s. There was a great development in both quantity and quality of literary output after World War II, but in many cases, because they saw their own career advancement as being in English and French and perhaps because they regarded those languages as more advanced than their own, African elites tended to be indifferent to indigenous literatures. Indeed, it is only since the 1970s that the dominance of literatures in the metropolitan languages has been challenged and that writers such as Ngugi wa Thiong'o have begun to write in African languages, with translations into English, Swahili, and other languages following publication in the mother tongue. There is in the literary, political, and educational circles of some African countries a growing sense that the fostering of literature in indigenous African languages is important, especially in the drive to create new national models closer to the culture and history of the people. The success of such a venture depends greatly on government policy. Somalia is a striking example of a country in which such a policy has been successfully applied. The role of publishers is also crucial; in spite of the severe financial constraints that operate in most African countries, some-such as Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe-now have indigenous publishing houses serving local readers. In some cases, international publishing houses with African interests also participate in publishing African-language texts. The rate of illiteracy in Africa is still high, which limits the potential readership for texts in African as well as other languages. However, the huge popularity of stage and radio dramas in a number of countries (for instance, Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Somalia, and Tanzania) demonstrates the great popular interest in forms of verbal art that both entertain and comment on contemporary life. The dominant theme in much of the literature in African languages is the conflict between traditional cultures and modernization. In the novel and the short story, although the influence of modern European literary forms is clear, so, too, is that of the oral narrative. Sharp political comment on corruption and inefficiency is also prevalent. In general the role of public comment on national problems, and on wider topics such as African unity and racism, is a highly developed and important one, just as it is in the metropolitan languages. West Africa Yoruba The rich oral literature of the Yoruba, who live mainly in Nigeria and Benin, consists of myths, legends, folktales, and song. It is still flourishing, particularly in the rural areas, and has exerted a considerable influence on the written literature. Yoruba orthography was standardized in 1875 by the Church Missionary Society, in Lagos. The Bible was translated in 1900 and was widely used in Yorubaland. It was followed in 1911 by a translation of John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, which has probably exerted more influence on African-language writers than has any other English work. The first written poetry, Iwe Ekini Sobo ("Sobo's First Book"), came in 1905 from the pen of the prolific and popular J. Sobowole Sowande. Sowande wrote several more collections (the last in 1934), publishing most of them himself. The first Yoruba novel did not appear until 1938; it was Daniel Olorunfemi Fagunwa's allegorical novel Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irunmale (1938; The Forest of a Thousand Daemons). It uses the traditional Yoruba themes of virtue, courage, and perseverance and focuses on the vices of cruelty and greed. Fagunwa's second novel was Igbo Olodumare (1949; "The Forest of God"). Two others in a similar style followed, but his fifth and last novel, published in 1961, was considerably more realistic. Fagunwa's allegorical and fantastic adventure tales, full of folkloric elements-spirits, monsters, transformation flights, gods, magic, and witchcraft-provided a model for other writers. A literary competition held at the time of Nigerian independence in 1960 was won by Femi Jeboda's realistic novel Olowolaiyemo ("Mr. People-Rally-Only-Around-the-Well-To-Do"), which deals with the hardships of urban life in Yorubaland. The trend of contemporary realism continued with Afolabi Olabimtan's novels. His first, Kekere Ekun (1967; "[Lad Nicknamed] Leopard Cub"), depicts the intrigues of a typically polygamous Yoruba home and the role of the church and school in a rural community. His second novel, Ayanmo (1973; "Predestination"), follows a village schoolmaster who studies hard to become a medical doctor. Various tempting and sophisticated women almost prevent him from achieving his ambition, but in the end he marries a girl from his hometown. Another successful writer was Akinwunmi Isola. His popular novel, O Le Ku (1974; "Heart-Rending Incidents Occurred"), depicts love and tragedy in a contemporary context. Literature and theatre African theatre The content and style of urban African theatre are influenced by both African dramatic traditions and Western theatre. The influence of Western styles is the result of a colonial presence, education in European languages, and the training of artists abroad. The degree and manner of foreign influence differ greatly from country to country, however. Such influence has hindered the development of African theatre in Zimbabwe, for example, where a minority continues to produce predominantly commercial Western theatre. The accent on Negritude in the theatre of French-speaking West Africa in the 1960s, on the other hand, was a reaction to the control of French directors, who clearly left their mark on production styles, e.g., in the Daniel Surano Theatre in Senegal, where the works of Aim Csaire and other leading playwrights are staged. The plays of Bernard Dadi of Cte d'Ivoire reflect French comic traditions, and Jean Pliya of Benin is one of a number of playwrights obsessed by colonial history. The texts of Western-educated writers have built a literary style of theatre, appealing to an elite audience, in which dance and music play, if anything, a subsidiary role. On the other hand, at a popular level, village theatre throughout Africa is based on the traditions of music, song, dance, and spectacle and has offered a rich platform for the development of contemporary urban theatre. Theatre innovators built onto village traditions of storytelling, some borrowing production styles from the colonial music-hall entertainment staged in West African cities in the 1920s and '30s. Concert parties toured Togo and Ghana, and in the 1950s the Ghanaian "Trios" emerged, with Bob Cole and his company delighting audiences in Accra with comic dramatizations of local events. West Africa The first professional theatres in Nigeria were companies created by actor-managers. The three most successful-Hubert Ogunde, Kola Ogunmola, and Duro Ladipo-were all Yoruba, and all started work as teachers involved in dramatizing Bible stories in African Christian churches. Ogunde's first production was The Garden of Eden (1944), staged in the Church of the Lord in Lagos. It was followed in 1945 by a secular satire, Strike and Hunger, inspired by a clash between Nigerian workers and their colonial bosses. Ogunde's success led him to form the Ogunde Concert Party, which, in a style borrowed from the current British concert parties, staged domestic comedies and astute political satires between opening and closing "glees" of song and dance unrelated to the plot. The euphoria of Nigerian independence in 1960 brought with it an explosion of creativity in the urban arts oriented toward new African forms and a rejection of colonial influences. This resulted in a creative confidence in literary and popular theatre that was to be influential throughout Africa. Traveling theatres, loosely known as Yoruba Opera companies, took to the road. Duro Ladipo created spectacular productions dramatizing themes from Yoruba mythology and history. His trilogy on the history of the Kingdom of Oyo, published in 1964 as Three Yoruba Plays (Oba Koso ["The King Did Not Hang"], Oba Moro ["The King of Ghosts"], and Oba Waja ["The King Is Dead"]), has the power and serenity of ancient Greek tragedy. Kola Ogunmola specialized in domestic comedies featuring himself as a brilliant actor and mime. He refined Ogunde's techniques, replacing saxophones with Yoruba drums and writing tightly constructed yet gentle social satires. His most typical play is Ife Owo (c. 1950; Love of Money), but his greatest success was with Omuti Apa Kini (1963), an adaptation of Amos Tutuola's The Palm-Wine Drinkard. Though Ogunmola and Ladipo died in the early 1970s, their influence continued through the next decade as decorated trucks carried Yoruba Opera companies to one-night stands in towns and villages. The Yoruba music-drama Obaluaye (1970), by the composer Akin Euba, added a theatrical sophistication to their idiom, and they had a profound influence on the work of literary playwrights, particularly Wole Soyinka and Ola Rotimi. Soyinka and Rotimi spent years as university playwright-directors, and their skills at staging their own works gave them a theatrical viability lacking in the more poetic work of John Pepper Clark. Wole Soyinka, a brilliant critic and satirist who in 1986 was the first African to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, is regarded as Africa's leading writer. His work reflects the complexities facing an African playwright writing in English, moving from naturalistic treatment of his subjects to a profoundly Yoruba view of universal themes. His early comic satires The Lion and the Jewel (first performed at Ibadan in 1959; published 1963) and The Trials of Brother Jero (1960) are popular with all levels of English-speaking audiences, but the verbal and philosophical complexities of his later works are for an intellectual elite. The Strong Breed (1963) and Death and the King's Horseman (1975) are powerful statements of cultural conflict, while Soyinka's political satires, such as Kongi's Harvest (1965), are both savage and entertaining. The Road (1965) and A Dance of the Forests (1963) delve into the dramatic contrasts of life in Africa through the complexities of Yoruba mythology. In the latter, written for and performed to celebrate Nigerian independence in October 1960, Soyinka criticized the myth of the glorious African past, rejecting the Negritude concept that the revival of African culture must be inspired by African cultural heritage alone. His drama became increasingly pessimistic-as well as more obscure-after the Nigerian civil war, notably in Madmen and Specialists (1970). He also turned to past events-for example, in Death and the King's Horseman-and to new versions of old plays. His version of the Bacchae of Euripides was staged by the National Theatre in London in 1973, and Opera Wonyosi, a version of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, appeared at the University of Ife in 1977. Ola Rotimi evolved a theatrical English enriched by African proverbs and idioms. His style of directing made brilliant use of dramatic movement and drew an enthusiastic response from both university and popular audiences. Rotimi excelled at historical tragedies: Kurunmi (1969) deals with the Yoruba wars and Ovonramwen Nogbaisi (1971) with the sack of Benin. He also had a flair for satirical comedy, as shown in Our Husband Is Gone Mad Again (1966). As directors, both Soyinka and Rotimi made creative use of music and dance. In Ghana, intercultural exchange had mixed results. In the 1960s Saka Acquaye's The Lost Fisherman, a musical based on "highlife" (see below Dance), was a popular success, as was Efua Sutherland's traveling theatre, for which she created productions based on village storytelling and local themes. Her plays in English use Greek models, as do those of Joe de Graaft. Ama Ata Aidoo was the most successful Ghanaian playwright after the 1960s. Her The Dilemma of a Ghost (1964) explores the complex cultural conflict arising in a Ghanaian village when a young man returns from his studies abroad with an Afro-American wife. Anowa (1970) deals with African involvement in the slave trade and the subservience of women. Hausa drama generally has a popular appeal and owes much to the dramatic style of traditional storytelling; it has focused on social problems, particularly those involving the Hausa family, with its tradition of polygamy. This practice has been criticized in many plays-for example, Tabarmar Kunya (1969; "Matter of Shame") by Adamu dan Gogo and Dauda Kano. Some plays satirize the dependence of uneducated people on Muslim scholars, and some-for example, Umaru Balarme Ahmed's Buleke (1970)-depict characters who lead a hectic modern life but are nevertheless still rooted in tradition. Plays are performed often in schools and are featured frequently on radio and television. Literature and theatre Modern literatures in European languages Though the written literatures in African languages antedate in origin those in European languages, they are discussed after the more widespread modern literatures in French, Portuguese, and English-the so-called metropolitan languages of Africa. The body of published African literature written in European languages is sufficient to be studied in its own right. Critical opinion within Africa remains divided about how authentically African experience can be rendered in a language of European origin, but, despite the growth of indigenous language publications, there is no serious threat to the survival of literatures in the metropolitan languages. French The first contemporary literature was born as a protest against French rule and the policy of assimilation. Its leading figure was Lopold Senghor, who in 1960 was elected first president of the Republic of Senegal. In Paris during the 1930s he met Negro writers from the French Caribbean, such as the poets Aim Csaire of Martinique and Lon Damas of French Guiana. Together, they began an examination of Western values and a reassessment of African culture, and in 1947 they founded Prsence Africaine, Africa's leading literary journal. Senghor's Anthologie de la nouvelle posie ngre et malgache (1948; "Anthology of the New Negro and Madagascan Poetry") was an important influence in the formation of the idea of a Negritude (a term first used by Csaire) that should include poets outside Africa-in the French Caribbean territories and in Madagascar, for example. Senghor's poems are sometimes regarded as examples of 20th-century French poetry in the manner of Paul Claudel or St. John Perse, but they are, in fact, essentially African: his love poetry, in particular, is intensely so in structure and tempo. Senghor's themes are those of Negritude: he attacks what he sees as the soullessness of Western civilization ("no mother's breast, but only nylon legs") and proclaims that African culture alone has preserved the mystic warmth of a life that could still revive "the world that has died of machines and cannons." This culture, says Senghor, gains strength from its closeness to nature and constant contact with "the ancestors"; Western culture is out of step with the world's natural and ancient rhythm. Therefore, he proclaims, " the leaven that the white flour needs." In his long rhapsodic lines he tries to make the French language swing and dance in the rhythms of his native Serer language. Another Senegalese, Birago Diop, has similarly explored the mystique of African life in a volume of poems, Leurres et lueurs (1960). His fellow countryman David Diop wrote the most violent and full-blooded protest poetry to be produced by the Negritude movement: "When civilization kicked us in the face, when holy water slapped our cringing brows. . . . " Two of the most important Francophone novelists are the Cameroonians Mongo Beti (pseudonym of Alexandre Biyidi), who wrote Le Pauvre Christ de Bomba (1956; The Poor Christ of Bomba), and Ferdinand Oyono, author of Une Vie de boy (1956; Houseboy) and Le Vieux Ngre et la mdaille (1956; The Old Man and the Medal). All three novels aim to explode the French colonial myth of France Outre-Mer: that the French West African possessions were not really colonies and that educated Africans are thus simply "black Frenchmen." The second generation of French African writers was less concerned with the public rhetoric of Negritude. Thus, though the Congolese poet Tchicaya U Tam'si sometimes speaks of his people's sufferings ("My race remembers the taste of bronze drunk hot"), he does not claim to be the spokesman of his race. In Le Mauvais Sang (1955; "Bad Blood"), Feu de brousse (1957; Brush-Fire), triche-coeur (1960; "A Game of Cheat-Heart"), pitom (1962), and Le Ventre (1964; "The Belly"), he explores his personal agonies in Surrealist poems in the dense texture of which mythological, Christian, and sexual imagery are juxtaposed. Camara Laye became famous with his romantic autobiography L'Enfant noir (1953; The Dark Child), which draws a poetic, idyllic picture of life in a traditional African town. His most important work, however, is the novel Le Regard du roi (1954; The Radiance of the King), which describes a white man's quest for personal salvation in the mysterious atmosphere of the West African jungle. It is regarded as among the most imaginative novels to have come from Africa. In a third novel, Dramouss (1966; A Dream of Africa), Laye, who in 1965 became a political refugee in Senegal, attacks the harsh methods of Guinea's ruling party. Among Africa's Socialist intellectuals, Senegal's Ousmane Sembene is best known as a film director, but his Les Bouts de bois de Dieu (1960; God's Bits of Wood) is a classic novel about the poor. In the 1960s there was an important development of the philosophical novel in French-speaking Africa, notably by Sheikh Hamidou Kane in L'Aventure ambigu (1961; Ambiguous Adventure) and by Yambo Ouologuem in Le Devoir de violence (1968; Bound to Violence). Both writers belong to the Islamic western Sudan and present their novels partly in the form of "dialogues," either between Islam and Western materialism or between traditional autocracy and Christian compassion. Remarkable as women writers in a hitherto male world were Mariama B, recipient of the first Noma Award for publishing in Africa for Une Si Longue Lettre (1980; So Long a Letter), and Aminata Sow Fall, a fellow Senegalese, who earned praise for La Grve des battu ou les dchets humains (1979; The Beggar's Strike), an ironic novella of great skill. English Literature and theatre The term African literatures covers traditional oral and written literatures together with the mainly 20th-century literature written mostly in European languages but also to an increasing extent in the many languages of the sub-Saharan region. Traditional written literature is limited to a smaller geographic area than is oral literature; indeed it is most characteristic of those sub-Saharan cultures that have participated in the cultures of the Mediterranean. In particular, there is literature in both Hausa and Arabic from the scholars of what is now northern Nigeria; the literature of the likewise Muslim Somali people; and literature in Ge'ez (or Ethiopic) and Amharic of Ethiopia, the one part of Africa where Christianity has been practiced long enough to be considered traditional. The relationship between oral and written traditions and in particular between oral and modern written literatures is one of great complexity and not a matter of simple evolution. Modern African literatures were born in the educational systems imposed by colonialism, with models drawn from Europe rather than existing African traditions. The modern African writer thus uses tradition as subject matter rather than as a means of effecting a continuity with past cultural practice. Oral traditions The poetic and narrative forms of oral tradition among those peoples living south of the Sahara are immensely rich and varied. They include myths (in the sense of symbolic accounts of the origins of things, whether the world, particular cultures, lineages, political structures, or gods), praise songs, epic poetry, folktales, riddles, proverbs, and magical spells. The content of this material also varies considerably and includes children's rhymes and oral history, as well as symbolic texts of profound intellectual significance. An important feature of African oral traditions is their close link with music. Poetry exists almost exclusively in chanted form or as song, and, among West African peoples with tonal languages (for example, the Akan and the Yoruba), much poetry is recited in musical form rather than spoken or sung.