In Search of African literary Aesthetics

Abstract

English language texts of Africa and its Diaspora that are 'transgressive' in the sense that they deviate from realist, linear narratives, may be linked under the categories of modern, post-modern, or post-colonial literatures. Post-colonial critics generally consider such writing to respond to colonization and Western literatures, which the texts subvert by 'writing back'. This article suggests that artistic principles present in indigenous African oral arts including music and in particular drumming, as well as oral storytelling, provided a resource-base for the aesthetics of Nigerian Amos Tutuola's and Zimbabwean Yvonne Vera's texts, the first of which were published in 1952 and 1992, respectively. These aesthetics include fusion between the physical and metaphysical worlds, a preponderance of images, use of repetition and sound and rhythm of words, non-linear narrative, and non-closure. The article examines the conditions that gave rise to the production of Tutuola's texts and...