21ST LIT Q2-W3-4 African Lit

21st CENTURY LITERATURE
Quarter 2 - Week 3-4
Republic of the Philippines

Department of Education
REGION V (BICOL)
SCHOOLS DIVISION OFFICE OF IRIGA CITY
ZEFERINO ARROYO HIGH SCHOOL
QUICK STUDY NOTES

in 21ST CENTURY LITERATURE
A. LESSON BRIEF: AFRICAN LITERATURE

B. KEY CONCEPTS:
Modern African literature has gained recognition worldwide with such classics as
Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, Ngugi wa Thiongo's Weep Not Child, and Wole Soyinka's
Death and the King's Horseman.
This recognition was reinforced by Soyinka's winning of the Nobel Prize for Literature
in 1986.
Modern African literature is written in indigenous African languages and in European

languages used in Africa. Written African literature is very new compared to the indigenous
oral tradition of literature which has been there and is still very much alive. While there are
literary works in Yoruba, Hausa, Zulu and Sotho, among others, this literature in African
indigenous languages is hardly known outside its specific linguistic frontiers.
Contemporary African Writers You Should Know:
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
o Adichie’s works are primarily character-driven, interweaving the background of

her native Nigeria and social and political events into the narrative.
o Her novel Purple Hibiscus (2003) is a bildungsroman, depicting the life
experience of Kambili and her family during a military coup, while her latest
work Americanah (2013) is an insightful portrayal of Nigerian immigrant life and
race relations in America and the western world.
o Adichie’s works have been met with overwhelming praise and have been
nominated for and won numerous awards, including the Orange Prize and
Booker Prize.
• Aminatta Forna
o Aminatta Forna first drew attention for her memoir The Devil That Danced on
Water (2003), an extraordinarily brave account of her family’s experiences
living in war-torn Sierra Leone, and in particular her father’s tragic fate as a
political dissident.
o Forna has gone on to write several novels, each of them critically acclaimed:
her work The Memory of Love (2010) juxtaposes personal stories of love and
loss within the wider context of the devastation of the Sierre Leone civil war,
and was nominated for the Orange Prize for Fiction.
• Nadine Gordimer
o One of the apartheid era’s most prolific writers, Nadine Gordimer’s works
powerfully explore social, moral, and racial issues in a South Africa under
apartheid rule.
o Despite winning a Nobel Prize in Literature for her prodigious skills in portraying
a society interwoven with racial tensions, Gordimer’s most famous and
controversial works were banned from South Africa for daring to speak out
against the oppressive governmental structures of the time.
o Her novel Burger’s Daughter follows the struggles of a group of anti-apartheid
activists and was read in secret by Nelson Mandela during his time on Robben
Island.
• Alain Mabanckou
o Alain Mabanckou’s works are written primarily in French, and are well known
for their biting wit, sharp satire and insightful social commentary into both Africa
and African immigrants in France.
o His novels are strikingly character-focused, often featuring ensemble casts of
figures, such as his book Broken Glass, which focuses on a former Congolese
teacher and his interactions with the locals in the bar he frequents, or his novel
Black Bazar, which details the experiences of various African immigrants in an
Afro-Cuban bar in Paris.
• Ben Okri
o His young experience greatly informed his future writing: his first, highly
acclaimed novels Flowers and Shadows (1980) and The Landscapes Within
(1981) were reflections on the devastation of the Nigerian civil war which Okri
himself observed firsthand.
o His later novels met with equal praise: The Famished Road (1991), which tells
the story of Azaro, a spirit child, is a fascinating blend of realism and depictions
of the spirit world and won the Booker Prize.
C. LEARNING CHECK-UP:
Matching type. Match the titles of masterpieces to the names of the famous African
authors by connecting them.
1. Ben Okri a. Purple Hibiscus

2. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie b. The Landscapes Within
3. Nadine Gordimer c. Broken Glass
4. Alain Mabanckou d. The Memory of Love
5. Aminatta Forna e. Americanah
f. The Devil that Danced on Water
g. Burger’s Daughter
h. The Farnished Road
i. Flowers and Shadows
j. Black Bazar
D. LEARNING INSIGHTS:
Reflect on the learning that you gained in the lesson by completing the
statements below:
I thought…
I learned…
Prepared by:
VERNA M. CONTRERAS
Subject Teacher
Evaluated by:
BELINDA B. SORIANO
Master Teacher I, English
School Quality Assurer
Approved:
LUDEVINA ESTER D. BOLANTE, Ed.D.

Secondary School Principal III

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21st CENTURY LITERATURE

Quarter 2 - Week 3-4

Republic of the Philippines

QUICK STUDY NOTES

A. LESSON BRIEF: AFRICAN LITERATURE

Modern African literature is written in indigenous African languages and in European

Contemporary African Writers You Should Know:

• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

o Adichie’s works are primarily character-driven, interweaving the background of

1. Ben Okri a. Purple Hibiscus

LUDEVINA ESTER D. BOLANTE, Ed.D.

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