African literature: the legacy of subjugation
AFRICAN LITERATURE : THE LEGACY OF SUBJUGATION The recent death of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o pulls us into the remembrance of the tyranny African literature suffered in the early and late ‘90s. Literature itself is an art of freedom, speech and resistance to every other art we detest. We should be convinced that our universe itself is made up of art. Speech is art, breathing is art, science is a form of art, war is art; everything that exists and sub-exist adopts art. Literature and governance is such a complex fusion. Many writers who used literature as a tool of resistance were arrested, and imprisoned or sent into exile. The underlying question now is: Has African literature been liberalized? Jack Mapanje, a Malawian poet, was imprisoned without charge in 1987 under the regime of President Hastings Kamuzu Banda. The government never gave an official reason for his detention, but it is widely believed that his first poetry collection, Of Chameleons and Gods (1981...