Creating New Bounds: Identity and Form of African Literature
Loading...
Date
2025-06
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Journal of the Literary Scholars Association
Abstract
Imagining the future of African literature, popular culture, and the digital humanities
provides a rich pool for literary scholars to push the frontiers of the literary enterprise of
Africa. Literature of the African continent has grown and is still growing, metamorphosing
in diverse forms, and inviting scrutiny that will help upcoming scholars and literature
enthusiasts appreciate the growth and extent of this vibrant body of literary art. There is no
gainsaying in the fact that African literature is no longer that body that is strictly tailored
after, or conditioned by, the literary traditions of other climes. It has come a long way from
what Ernest Emenyonu describes as the pre-colonial and colonial European intellectual
theory of “If it is not written, it is not Literature!” (3), and which Obiajunwa Wali calls “a
minor appendage in the main stream of European literature” (13). The focus of this paper
is to examine the African literary enterprise which, I dare to say, is defying old labels,
shaking off old restrictions, and carving out new identities. This ambitious exploration I
hope to explain to you using the changing dynamics playing out in the different modes
through which African literature is taking.
Description
Keywords
Citation
Aliyu S.B. (2025) Creating New Bounds: Identity and Form of African Literature. JOLSA Vol. 1