This chapter focuses on English-language novels in Africa. The novel as a genre came to Africa from Europe along with European languages, alphabetic writing, and the printing press. The first English-language novels were written by white settlers, and, before 1950, the African novel in English is nearly synonymous with the South African novel. Black Africans first came in contact with the novel at mission schools where English fiction was part of the curriculum. In spite of these origins, however, African fiction should not be considered a mere offshoot of European literature, for the task of writing fiction in Africa required a reinvention of the genre. Adapting the conventions inherited from Europe to describe colonial societies and to narrate African dilemmas was a task not unlike that faced by the originators of the novel in England and France in the eighteenth century.
