Amilcar Cabral and the fortunes of African literature
Titel:
Amilcar Cabral and the fortunes of African literature
Auteur:
Vambe, Maurice Taonezvi Zegeye, Abebe
Verschenen in:
African identities
Paginering:
Jaargang 4 (2006) nr. 1 pagina's 23-44
Jaar:
2006-04
Inhoud:
An able political leader, profound cultural theorist and provocative philosopher of the African struggle for freedom, Amilcar Cabral remains one of the significant African revolutionaries. His theoretical works, particularly National Liberation and Culture, Return to the Source, Identity and Dignity in the Context of the Liberation Struggle and The Weapon of Theory have influenced the direction of creativity in African literature in significant ways. An application of the theoretical insights of this work to African literature helps to understand and critically elaborate the spirit of struggle captured in Africa's diverse arts. This article analyses four creative texts of literature from Africa. These texts are Mission to Kala (1958) by the Cameroon-born Mongo Beti, Harvest of Thorns (1989) by the Zimbabwe-born Shimmer Chinodya, Devil on the Cross (1982) by the Kenyan Ngugi wa Thiongo, and Nervous Conditions (1988) by Tsitsi Dangarembga from Zimbabwe. We have deliberately not considered any texts from Lusophone (Portuguese-speaking) Africa because we believe that the influence of Amilcar Cabral's theoretical writings transcend the literary boundaries carved out as a consequence of the 1884 Berlin conference that partitioned the continent into Anglophone, Lusophone and Francophone Africa.
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