Introduction to African Literature

Introduction to African Literature

This course introduces three novels authored by African women, focusing on gender and postcolonial theories. It highlights  the ways in which Ama Ata Aidoo, Ken Bugul, and Tsitsi Dangaremba use their imagination to unveil their perspectives on African women's condition in postcolonial African contexts and how their works challenge patriarchal and colonialist discourses regarding gender, racial and class hierarchies. However, reading African literature requires a broader understanding of the history of colonization, nationalist movements, such as Pan-Africanism and Negritude, and how writers defy and appropriate colonial languages to create their fictional works. For authors such as Achebe, Senghor Ngugi, and others, the project to decolonize and reconstruct culture, nurtured through creative practice, mainly through literary works and cinematic productions, meant to defy colonialist discourses and rewrite history. For women, writing Africa is far more complex as it involves a constant process of challenging hegemonic discourses and political structures which contribute to women's silence. In their works, female characters need to find strategies of survival in postcolonial contexts. Though the course is meant for those who want to do academic research on African Studies, it is also for all those learners who just want to understand African cultures and have the opportunity to read great fictional works. It is a course for all those who want to read Africa.

Ama Ata Aidoo, Tsitsi Dangaremba and Ken Bugul

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What you will learn

• Gender and identity in African women's literature
• African Women's Fiction
• Ama Ata Aidoo, Tsitsi Dangaremba and Ken Bugul

Rating: 4.16667

Level: All Levels

Duration: 1 hour

Instructor: Yvonne Silva