Abstract

What is African Literature? In what language(s) should it be written? As a scholar or student of African Literature from outside of the continent, what is/are the language(s) that he or she should study? This paper examines the critical debate on the language question in African literature, explores the intersections between discussions on language in literature and broader social,  political, and educational problems experienced in “post”-colonial Africa, and compares the articulations of ideas on the issue across linguistic, social, historical and genre-based divisions. As literary critics, before thinking about thematic and linguistic questions in African literature, as one reads and studies certain texts, it is important to try to recognize the possible intellectual as well as activist intervention in the text, think comparatively as well as organically about the set of issues broached at different levels, and think about how to take actions accordingly in one’s own studies and writings.

Keywords: Language, Activism, Knowledge production, Tradition, Liberation