Routes: language and the identity
of African literature
Moradewun Adejunmobi Assistant Professor a1 a1 African American and African Studies Program, University of California,
Davis, CA, USA
Abstract
The debate over the language of African literature has continued to generate
significant interest ever since the emergence of African literary writing in
European languages. Discussions of this debate have in the past often highlighted
the inherently normative character of the idea of an African literature
in African languages. By tracing the history of the debate, this paper seeks
to distinguish between the actual role played by African languages in the
emergence of a literature identified as African by its practitioners, and the
ideological function of the debate for Africans who write in European
languages. From this perspective, appeals for a literature in indigenous
languages appear to serve the purpose of ethnic signification on behalf of a
tradition of writing that continues to rely on European languages at the
levels of both creative practice and theoretical formulation.
