Additions and Corrections to Janheinz Jahn's Bibliography of Neo-African Literature (1965)

1968 ◽  
Vol 11 (02) ◽  
pp. 129-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernth Lindfors
Keyword(s):  
African Literature ◽  
Complete List ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Travel Books ◽  
African Writers ◽  
Political Works ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Unpublished Manuscripts ◽  
Multilingual Approach

Janheinz Jahn's Bibliography is the most useful reference work that bibliographers of African literature have yet produced. One may wish to quarrel with Jahn about his definition of “neo-African literature” or about some of the material he has chosen to include (e.g., unpublished manuscripts, sermons, travel books, political works, monographs) as well as some he has chosen to exclude (e.g., literary works by white African writers, collections of folklore), but one must applaud his thorough documentation and multilingual approach. No other bibliography of African literature has been so comprehensive and so accurate. However, Jahn himself is aware that “there is no bibliography without gaps,” and he has invited others to help him “fill in these gaps and correct errors” (Jann, p. ix). It is hoped that the following list of additions and corrections will prove useful not only to Jahn but also to librarians, literary scholars, and other bibliographers. It is not to be taken as a complete list, for I have had neither the time nor the resources to check all of Jahn's entries or to search in more than a few libraries for missing titles. Of necessity my emphasis has been placed on materials written in European languages. I would encourage those who are aware of further errors and omissions to publish similar lists so that a more definitive bibliography of African literature can be prepared.

scholarly journals Hibridization, Linguistic and Stylistic Innovation in Cameroonian Literature and Implications for Translation

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. p165
Author(s):  
Suh Joseph Che
Keyword(s):  
Driving Force ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Considerable Influence ◽  
European Language ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
European Languages ◽  
African Writer ◽  
African Writers

Drawing from Cameroonian drama written in French and translated into English, this paper demonstrates how Cameroonian literature written in European languages and translated into other European languages is characterized by linguistic and stylistic innovation. It examines the reasons and motivations underlying this phenomenon, first from the perspective of the ambivalent situation of the Cameroonian and African writer writing not in his native language but rather in a European language, and secondly in the light of the prevailing literary creative trend and attitude of Cameroonian and, indeed, African writers in general. In this context, it is argued and posited that Cameroonian literary works are heavily tinted with linguistic and stylistic innovations such that the source texts actually intervene and exert considerable influence on the mode of their translation into the target language, particularly if the translator is to preserve the Cameroonian/African aesthetic which informs them and constitutes their driving force.

scholarly journals “Securing One’s Base in Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s Ongoing Literary Theory”: An Interview

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 783-785
Author(s):  
Moustapha Ndour
Keyword(s):  
Literary Theory ◽  
African Literature ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Ngugi Wa Thiong'o ◽  
Language Policies ◽  
Literary Identity ◽  
African People ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Full Control ◽  
Definition Of

In this interview, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o shares his current ongoing thoughts on the definition of African literature, issue of language and positionality, and decolonization of African resources. Ngũgĩ argues that English and European languages are stealingAfrican literary identity. His personal commitment to write in Gĩkũyũ is less motivated by a wider readership than a concern to secure “his base”. He lays the blame on Africans for lacking self-esteem or self-conception. Decolonizing African resources, including reforming language policies, stands as a mental sanity challenge in a world where African people are stereotyped and ethnicized in comparison to their Western counterparts. He concludes his thought humorously by calling for a full control of African resources and spaces.

scholarly journals The Choice of Language for African Creative Writers

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edadi Ilem Ukam
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
African Literature ◽  
Indigenous Languages ◽  
Lingua Franca ◽  
Native Languages ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Know How ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Creative Writers ◽  
African Writers

Language issue has been considered as a major problem to Africa. The continent has so many distinct languages as well as distinct ethnic groups. It is the introduction of the colonial languages that enable Africans to communicate with each other intelligibly: otherwise, Africa has no one central language. Among the colonial languages are English, French, Arabic and Portuguese which today serve as lingua franca in the mix of multiple African languages. Based on that, there is a serious argument among African critics about which language(s) would be authentic in writing African literature: colonial languages which serve as lingua franca, or the native indigenous languages. While some postcolonial African creative writers like Ngugi have argued for the authenticity and a return in writing in indigenous African languages, avoiding imperialism and subjugation of the colonisers, others like Achebe are in the opinion that the issue of language should not be the main reason in defining African literature: any languagecan be adopted to portray the lifestyles and peculiarities of Africans. The paper is therefore, designed to address the language debate among African creative writers. It concludes that although it is authentic to write in one’s native language so as to meet the target audience, yet many Africans receive their higher education in one of the colonial and/or European languages; and as such, majority do not know how to write in their native languages. Rather, they write in the imposed colonial languages in order tomeet a wider audience. Not until one or two major African languages are standardised, taught in schools, acquired by more than 80 per cent of Africans and used as common languages, the colonial languages would forever continue to have a greater influence in writing African literature. The paper recommendes that Africans should have one or two major African languages standardised, serving as common languages; also African literature should be written in both colonialand African languages in order to avoid the language debate by creative African writers. 

Meïr Goldschmidt and the main currents in 19th-century Judaism

2001 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Ober
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Public Image ◽  
Complete Understanding ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Jewish Heritage ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Phenomenal Knowledge

Although the noted nineteenth-century Danish-Jewish writer Meïr Goldschmidt (1819–1887) made his entry into literature with a novel on Jewish themes, his later novels treated non-Jewish subjects, and his Jewish heritage appeared progressively to recede into the background of his public image. Literary historians have paid little attention to his complex perception of his own Jewishness and have made no effort to discover the immense significance he himself felt that Judaism had for his life and for his literary works. Moreover, no previous study has comprehensively treated Goldschmidt’s far-reaching network of interrelationships with an astonishing number of other major Jewish cultural figures of nineteenth-century Europe. During his restless travels crisscrossing Europe, which were facilitated by his phenomenal knowledge of the major European languages, he habitually sought out and associated with the leading Jewish figures in literature, the arts, journalism, and religion, but this fact and the resulting mutually influential connections he formed have been overlooked and ignored. This is the first focused and documented study of the Jewish aspect of Goldschmidt’s life, so vitally important to Goldschmidt himself and so indispensable to a complete understanding of his place in Danish and in world literatures.

“Talk in Tamil!” – Does Sri Lankan Tamil onward migration from Europe influence Tamil language maintenance in the UK?

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (269) ◽  
pp. 123-149
Author(s):  
Lavanya Sankaran
Keyword(s):  
Heritage Language ◽  
Language Maintenance ◽  
Recent Change ◽  
Sri Lankan ◽  
Mobility Patterns ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Onward Migration ◽  
Migratory Patterns ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Uk

Abstract This article uses the “communicative repertoire” conceptual framework to investigate the evolving linguistic practices in the Sri Lankan Tamil (SLT) diaspora, looking specifically at how changing mobility patterns have had an influence on heritage language use. Drawing on fieldwork undertaken with 42 participants of diverse migration trajectories in London, the study finds that onward migration has important implications for Tamil language maintenance and use in the UK, and for the introduction of European languages into the community. It argues that Tamil practices can only be fully understood if we consider them within the context of participants' communicative repertoires. Further, the definition of Tamil needs to be expanded to include different varieties, registers and styles that have been shaped by onward migration. As the trend of multiple migrations is becoming increasingly common in globalization processes, studying the recent change in SLT migratory patterns is also crucial to gaining insight into the diversities and transnational links that exist within and across diaspora communities respectively.

scholarly journals The ethical turn in the early writings of Pär Lagerkvist

2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-66
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Szewczyk-Haake
Keyword(s):  
Moral Sense ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Artistic Activity ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Unpublished Manuscripts

Abstract In the text presented, I have undertaken an analysis of the early essays of Pär Lagerkvist (dated 1915-1917), both the ones published in periodicals and the unpublished manuscripts in the possession of the Kungliga Biblioteket in Stockholm. In those essays, Lagerkvist paid considerable attention to the matters of the ethics of art and the conflict between the ethical and aesthetical criteria of assessment of the work of art, and those problems are discussed also in Lagerkvist’s letters from that time. The aim of the article is to present this less known area of the artist’s activity and to point to the fact that the consequences of those reflections can be tracked in Lagerkvist’s literary works written in the same time period. Moreover, it can be argued that the understanding of the ethical art and the moral sense of the artistic activity presented in the early texts became an import and lasting feature of Lagerkvist’s writing - and, consequently, it can be claimed that the essays under discussion have a formative effect on Lagerkvist’s later output.

scholarly journals Imagology of Iranians in One Thousand Nights and One Night

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 74
Author(s):  
Ehsan Ghabool ◽  
Mina Ravansalar
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Literature ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Real Image ◽  
Economic Prosperity ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Arabic Translation ◽  
The Real ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Definition Of

Imagology is a branch of comparative literature which explores the image of one nation in the literature of another nation. One Thousand Nights and One Night is among the important books which can show the image of different nations and people such as Indians, Iranians and Arabs. Since the oldest version of the book is in Arabic, it is considered an Arabic literary work though it was translated from a Persian tale in the first place. On this basis the study of the image of Iranians in One Thousand Nights and One Night can be included under the definition of imagology. In this article, first we explain, analyze and study the image of Iranians in the book One Thousand Nights and One Night with respect to 1. anthropology (including entertainments, personification of animals, disapprobation of lies and betrayal of spouses), 2. religious and mythical beliefs (including the belief in daevas and jinnis, magic, fire-worshipping and similar plots), 3. politics (emphasizing the position of vizier and his family in government), 4. economics (emphasizing economic prosperity), then we will compare the collected information with the image of Iranians in credited works and in this way we will identify the similarities and differences of Iranians’ image in One Thousand Nights and One Night and the above-said literary works. Finally we come to this conclusion that the similarities belong to the real image of Iranians in the pre-Islamic days and that differences show the image of post-Islamic Iran which is added through Arabic translation.

scholarly journals Hybridity and the Shape of the New African Woman

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 349-361
Author(s):  
Regie Panadero Amamio
Keyword(s):  
Women Characters ◽  
African Literature ◽  
African Woman ◽  
Women's Bodies ◽  
Male Characters ◽  
Gender Oppression ◽  
Dark Continent ◽  
The New Woman ◽  
African Writers ◽  
The Many

Hybridity is argued as an intricate combination of attraction and repulsion that describes the relationship between the colonizers and the colonized. This combination creates a challenge to and disruption of the monolithic power exercised by the colonizers of Africa who (mis)represented the land as a Dark Continent. Such monolithic power underpins the portrayal of the colonizers’ patriarchal tradition within which women characters in creative works by Africans are commonly situated. The inclusion of women as part of the many subjects of power strengthens the discourse on hybridity in African literature. To question power is to see men and women both apart and together as ambivalence that defines the idea of hybridity in the African literary tradition. In this paper, the employment of deconstruction in the  analysis of women characters in five selected stories by African writers reveals a new consciousness in African literature using the Dark Continent metaphor as a mirror of  the female aesthetics. In this sense, the use of women’s bodies in the short stories does not only point to the issue of gender oppression but also to a power that is disrupting and slowly dismantling the long-entrenched patriarchal stance forcing the male characters to question their current worldview and position. Overall, this paper has established that contemporary African literature on women recognizes the hybridized identity and shape of the new woman, consequently proving that the so-called Dark Continent is nothing but a myth.

Negritude: Some Dissident Voices

1974 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 23-25
Author(s):  
Barbara Ischinger
Keyword(s):  
African Literature ◽  
Wole Soyinka ◽  
Ousmane Sembene ◽  
Ferdinand Oyono ◽  
Literary Evolution ◽  
French Speaking ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Ezekiel Mphahlele ◽  
African Writers

Only eight years ago Janheinz Jahn stated in Neo-African Literature that the critics of nigritude were all writing in English—not in French. Jahn was referring to writers like Ezekiel Mphahlele, Gerald Moore and Wole Soyinka, whose criticism he regarded as “based on an inadequate translation.” 2 The most important movement in the literary evolution in French-speaking Africa had, according to Jahn, only been criticized out of ignorance and misunderstanding. Today, criticism of Negritude has become a major issue in those French-speaking countries which were among its strongest supporters originally. It should be mentioned, however, that certain French African writers—among them Ferdinand Oyono and Ousmane Sembene—have opposed Negritude since the 1950s.

A Final Word

2019 ◽  
pp. 334-339
Author(s):  
James W. Underhill ◽  
Mariarosaria Gianninoto
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
Final Word ◽  
Two Cultures ◽  
The People ◽  
Raymond Williams ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Global World ◽  
Multilingual Approach ◽  
East West

The authors end their study of the four keywords by reflecting on the consequences of recent events relating to Europe and the increasing need for us to find shared keywords in the global world. Having begun with Raymond Williams’ definition of keywords and taken on board a multilingual approach to keywords as ideological concepts, the authors review the ways the people has taken on radical forms in Britain, France and Germany, while at other times it has been heralded as the motor of history in Chinese and Czechoslovak communist rhetoric. The adoption of Western keywords such as citizen and individual proves to be just as political, the authors conclude. And Europe is no less political, whether it is a question of celebrating it as an ideal, defending it as a project, or attacking it from without or from within. The authors conclude with the hope that they have managed to move beyond national prejudice and beyond reductive stereotypes. The model their corpus-based research provides is one in which three levels of complexity must be taken into account. Each tradition is complex and changing in any linguistic or cultural exchange, and the migration of meanings between any two cultures proves equally complex. By seeking to represent the various ways Chinese authors respond to the diversity of European conceptualizations of the four keywords, the authors hope to have taken readers beyond East-West models, and Communist-Capitalist models, simplistic oppositions which break down as soon as we consider how individual authors express themselves in any given language at any given moment in history. This book is about words, and what happens when meanings migrate, but it is also about worldviews, and how we live within them, learning to express ourselves with words.

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