25 - West African literature in English: beginnings to the mid-seventies

Summary

The roots of English-language literature in West Africa may be traced to the formation of various cultures in reaction to external contacts during successive overlapping historical periods. The literary traditions of the region have been shaped by these interlocking cultural histories, just as the cultural identities of the region are products of its many-layered history. These cultural strata have had such a strong influence, and writers borrow so freely across cultures that it is not always possible to determine the essential African element from the invasive or the syncretic product. Each of the major literatures is the product, not of any one tradition – not even of one as dominant as English colonial culture – but of live traditions that are always available to creative writers even when they are inactive: as Wole Soyinka puts it, “the past exists now” (1988: 19).

The dominance of English as a linguistic medium has tended to obscure this fact. Only the colonial connections of the culture are implied in categories like “Common wealth literature” – where the literature is seen as an extension of the English tradition, or “postcolonial literature” as a product of European cultural imperialism to which it is a counter discourse. Femi Osofisan sees in the latter category a revival of the “grand myth of [precolonial African] Absence” (1991: 1). The exclusion of indigenous traditions is inherent in such language-based classifications of Europhone African literatures. The continuing influence of the different traditions is an essential part of the literary history.