AFRICAN LITERATURE AND MIGRATION

Abstract

African literature is a unique type of literature that relates African stories and experiences with a reflection of the African culture, traditions, values system and norms using major African narrative ingredients such as proverbs, idioms, riddles, myths and the panegyric mode of story-song technique to add sonority to the narrative. It is properly appreciated as a creative writing of a sort within the bounds and ambience of African worldview. Migration which is the human movement across the shores of African continent masterminded by slave trade, incessant globalization and industrialization, contemporary colonization of the African minds and thoughts, insecurities, religious cum ethnic clashes and a quest for better human enterprise have in the long run deeply affected the originality with regard to the Africanity and consequently the Orality of contemporary African literature. Using the method of philosophical analysis, the researchers undertake an evaluative study of the extent of damage continuous migration of Africans have done to the quality, originality and Africanness of African literature, and find out that migration has profoundly affected the originality of the quality of African literature to worth the name. The paper, therefore, recommends a reconceptualization of the African belief system and an indoctrination of same to African writers, infrastructural improvement in African countries to reduce the desire of Africans to migrate to western countries, a decolonization of the African mind and thought on the belief that African literature is inferior to western literature, and an easy accessibility of African literary works to African children both at home and in diaspora.