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عندما وجدت اسمي بين قلة من الأديبات العربيات في
تقرير التنمية الإنسانية لعام 2005 ممن أحدثن أثرا
في مجتمعاتهن تساءلت هل فعلا نستحق هذا؟
ما يتأكد لي كل يوم، ومن كم الانتاج الأدبي والجوائز
والتكريم والنشاط الدؤوب للترجمة أن الأدب سيبقى
مهما اتخذ من اشكال ، ومهما كانت وسائطه حديثة
ومختلفةـ لأن الأدب هو الأفكار والتعبير عنها بحرية،
وهو الهوية الشخصية ووسيلة التواصل بين الناس
صغرت مجتمعاتهم أم كبرت.
Jumoke Verissimo
Emmanuel Uduma
“WhERE AND hOW IS ThE LITERATURE
OF ThE WORLD GOING IN ThIS GLOBAL
VILLAGE?” – A NIGERIAN pERSpECTIVE
By Jumoke Verissimo and
Emmanuel Uduma Nigeria
The appearance of African literature
on the global scene started with early
missionaries and colonialists who were
non-Africans. They recorded the oral
literature of the people, but were heavily
influenced by their cultural perspective.
Subsequently, the literature of Africa, and
its history, have continued to be widely
misrepresented. This, sadly has continued
to haunt the con-tinent’s image, many
years later. In recent times, the desire
of the continent to correct this image
problem has encouraged many writers
from Africa to tell their own stories.
Many years later, even as African literature
has found a place in college syllabi across
the world, it continues to be misinterpreted
and misunderstood. Now, African stories
- though being told by its own people - are
being hand-picked by the global media,
to meet the limited attention spans, and
needs for sensationalism of the world.
However, putting aside a debate about the
the-matic preferences that have influenced
the material on which present and future
Africa’s literature is judged, we will pursue
a short journey through literature in Nigeria.
What might be considered the earliest
attempt to record Nigerian literature in
written form dates back to the seventeenth
century, when Hausa literature was
translated into Arabic. Two centuries
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