p African literatures have reached such a level of development that the majority of researchers believe that they ought to be viewed as an inalienable and important component of world literature. The works of African writers have come to play a big role in the cultural life of newly free states. For instance, the verses of L. Sedar Senghor, the novels of Chinua Achebe and Etienne Jalm and the plays of Wole Soyinka are now well known and acclaimed abroad. The literature of the African continent is now studied as a separate subject at the philology department of Moscow University. Many monographs, articles and reviews have been written 294 about the works of African writers. Some researchers even assert that their number almost exceeds the number of original works by African authors. This, of course, is an overstatement. And yet it reflects the enormous and ever growing interest in the young African literatures. Matters concerning the development of these literatures, the writings of the young African authors are discussed at numerous seminars, symposiums and conferences. African literatures have become an object of acute ideological struggle, and in the discussions concerning the ways of their development one can hear the echoes of discussions about the ways of the development of the newly free African states.

p A special place among the diverse and original literatures of the African continent is occupied by the literature of ancient Egypt and the new literature in Arabic. Most of the writings of ancient Egypt that have reached us are accounts of trade expeditions and travels, folk tales and stories. An important place in the literature of ancient Egypt is also occupied by poetry of different genres, including lyric poetry which is one of the oldest in the world and was the first to take up a range of topics that subsequently became widespread in world poetry.

p Egypt’s new literature written in Arabic is closely connected with other Arabic literatures, and its first genre was the historical novel. The 1920s and 1930s, however, witnessed the appearance of a large number of short stories and novelettes which pushed the historical novel to second place. The modern novelettes first appeared at the turn of the century and not without the influence of Russian literature. Very popular are Lev Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Anton Chekhov and Maxim Gorky whose works have been translated in large editions into Arabic.

p The development of the new literature in Arabic in other countries of North Africa began somewhat later. In recent years some progress in this field has been registered in Morocco and particularly in Tunisia where Arabic literature has fairly strong positions.

p Literature written in French developed in Maghreb which was under French rule for many years. This circumstance did not prevent it from reflecting the mood of the people of these countries during the struggle for independence. Authors in that part of Africa who wrote in French produced excellent works of prose and won praise from readers and critics. Thei  295 writings occupy a prominent place in the system of cultural values of the peoples of North Africa and have played an important role in the development of national awareness. Splendid works have come from under the pen of Ahmed Sefrioui and Driss Chraibi (Morocco), Albert Memmi ( Tunisia), Mouloud Feraoun, Mohammed Dib, Mouloud Mammeri (Algeria), and other writers. Nonetheless, it is not difficult to imagine that the authors of these countries will be increasingly writing in Arabic.

p Literature in English, French, Portuguese and also in African languages, the most important of which in terms, of their modern development are literatures in the Hausa and Swahili languages, are developing in countries south of the Sahara.

p Mention should be made of the literature of the Republic of South Africa or, to be precise, two branches of this literature, one in Afrikaans and the other in English. The 1940s saw the appearance of Peter Abrahams’ novel The Path of Thunder, and the novel Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton, and other works that won world acclaim. This literature of protest told the world about the situation in the country which has been and remains a racialist preserve. As a rule, South African writers come from the progressive section of the population, and are consequently in very difficult circumstances. In order to avoid persecution some of them have left South Africa and now live in Europe and the USA. In his novel The Wanderers, the famous South African author Ezekiel Mphahlele writes about the people who are forced to leave their country, and about its progressive writers and journalists.

p Of the African literatures whose formation began in the 1920s and 1930s the greatest progress has been made by Nigerian literature in English. It has developed rapidly from cautious experiments of the publicists in the 1930s who opposed racial prejudices and advocated independence (the poetry of Nnamdi Azikiwe, Dennis Chukude Osadebay, and others), to the very mature poetry of the 1960s (Christopher Okigbo, Wole Soyinka, Gabriel Okara, and others) and plays which won recognition abroad as well as in Africa. But it was the novel that brought Nigerian literature the greatest fame and the country’s leading novelists Chinua Achebe and Cyprian Ekwensi have many followers among African writers.

p Nigeria plays a conspicuous role in Africa and its creative intelligentsia is respected in other parts of the continent; for instance, they talk about Achebe’s school. African literature, that of Nigeria in particular, has since turned into an arena of acute ideological struggle which is pursuing a more and more distinct objective: as in other spheres of social relations, it is in the final analysis the question of the path of development.

p There are signs that Ghanaian literature has been making good progress in recent years. Established in 1967 the Anowuo Educational Publications has issued several books by young writers and has thus contributed to the accelerated development of printed literature.

p The first shoots of the French language literature of West Africa appeared in the latter half of the 1920s, to be precise in 1926, with the publication in Paris of the novel ForceBonte by the Senegalese writer Bakary Diallo. Towards the end of the Second World War there were still no written works of any social importance in the French colonies, but the literature of some countries was already poised for a qualitatively new step forward and did so after liberation.

p The leading role in realistic prose is played by the writers of Cameroon, Senegal, and the Ivory Coast. They have created outstanding works showing the growth’of national awareness and the struggle of the peoples for a life of dignity, for economic and political rights, and condemning the colonial system. Among the best known of these writers is Sembene Ousmane, author of the novels 0 pays, man beau peuple and Les bouts de bois de Dieu, the versatile and gifted prose writer from the Ivory Coast Bernar Dadier, and Mongo Beti and Ferdinand Oyono of Cameroon.

p After 1960, at the stage of the independent development of states, African literature turned to new social problems, which were taken up in the novels Afrika Ba’a by Re"my Medou Mvomo and Man-God from Bisso by Etienne Jahn, both of Cameroon (the latter won the Grand^Prix of Black Africa), The Unvanquished by Bediako Asara of Ghana, Behind the Rising Sun by Sebastian Okechukwu Wezu of’ Nigeria, and others.

p In spite of the 500-year-long Portuguese presence in Africa and the fact that the poetic traditions of the peoples of the Portuguese colonies have almost a century-long history, literature in the Portuguese language began to develop at 297 about the same time as literatures in English and French. But even in this very short span of time the literature of the Cape Verde and Sao Tome Islands, Angola and Mozambique has covered a difficult road that was not without internal contradictions.

p Important literary works have been created in the former Portuguese colonies in Africa by the late Agostinho Neto, a prominent poet who was also the leader of the Angolan Revolution, President of Angola and head of the MPLA. The fact that African literatures in Portuguese are not as well known is due to the obstacles raised by the colonial administration and the censor’s office to prevent books from crossing the colonial borders, especially those whose authors realistically described the life and the mood of the people.

p Until recently researchers studying African literatures called East Africa a “desert”. And indeed the rise and development of literatures in that part of the continent compared with the literature of West Africa was delayed by several decades. In the 1960s, however, certain positive changes took place. For instance, signs appeared that literatures there had entered a period of accelerated development. Many works by authors in East Africa are a protest against the unequal property and social status which is becoming more and more apparent in some of the newly free states. The young writer from Uganda Bonny Lubega in his novel The Outcasts writes about the "black masters" and the exploitation of the needy sections of the population. The most prominent writer in that part of Africa is the Kenyan novelist and playwright James Ngugi. He has written three novels and several stories about the difficulties of spiritual development of young Kenyans who had gone through the trials of the liberation struggle. In the early 1970s a new name appeared in Kenyan literature, that of Charles Mangua who, being a talented prose writer, immediately rose to prominence. His novels, particularly the second one, A Fail in the Mouth, mirror the disillusionment of some sections of Kenyan society with the present state of affairs and manifestations of social injustice in the country.

p The acquaintance of the mass Soviet reader with the works of African writers in Russian translation began in the 1930s with the publication of the novel Return of the Ghost by the Egyptian writer Tewfiq Al-Hakim put out in Leningrad in 1935. Then, one of the most vivid works to 298 be published in Russian was The Path of Thunder by the South African writer Peter Abrahams (Moscow, 1949) which was subsequently translated into Georgian, Chuvash, A/erbaijanian and other languages of the Soviet peoples. The further increase in the publication of translated works attests not only to the growing interest in the USSR to African literatures, the life of African peoples and their fight for independence, but also to the development of African literatures and the increasing number of works of fiction by African writers.

p In the late 1950s and the early 1960s a fairly large number of works (prose and poetry) by North African authors writing in Arabic and French were translated into Russian: the collections Young Poets of Arab Countries (Moscow, 1965), Stories by Arab Writers (Moscow, 1955), Algeria’s Victory (poems, Moscow, 1961), the novels by the Algerian writer Mohammed Dib The Big House and Fire (Moscow, 1956) which describe the life of the Algerian poor, and other works. In 1975 the novel by the Moroccan author Driss Chraibi The Heirs was translated into Russian, and in 1977 a collection entitled the Morning of My People. Contemporary Algerian Poetry came out in the Russian language.

p Not only researchers were interested in the literature of the countries south of the Sahara but also Soviet publishing houses which lost no time in acquainting the Soviet reader with many original works by the young African authors. For instance, Sembene Ousmane’s novel 0 pays, mon beau peuple which first appeared in 1957 was published in Russian translation a year later and one of his other novels, Les bouts de bois de Dieu, was put out in Russian in 1962. Such important works written at the end of the 1950s as Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958), Mongo Beti’s Mission terminee (1957), and Ferdinand Oyono’s Le vieux Negre et la medaille (195(>) were translated into Russian in the early 1960s. In this period other vivid works of prose were translated, including the novel The Fair House by the South African novelist Jack Cope, the novel Weep Not, Child by the Kenyan James Ngugi, the novel by the Nigerian novelist Cyprian Ekwensi People of the City, and also the collection Poets of Ghana (Moscow, 1963), a collection of stories (Moscow, 1962) by writers of Angola, Ghana, Cameroon, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, 299 South Africa, and Ethiopia. In the 1970s the following books were published in Russian in the USSR: a novel by the Sierra Leone writer Sarif R. Easmon Burnt-Out Marriage (Moscow, 1977), a novel entitled Oil Man ofObange by the Nigerian author John Munonye (Moscow, 1975), a collection entitled Voices of Good Hope. Verse by Contemporary Poets of South Africa (Moscow, 1975), The Wind and the Bird. African Folk Poetry (Moscow, 1976), The Tales of African Peoples (Moscow, 1976), and other books. There is every reason to say that the Soviet reader is familiar Jwith all the literatures of the African continent, with all the writers and poets whose works are interesting both in terms of their artistic value and social significance.

p An important role in establishing criteria for selecting works for translation into the languages of the USSR was played by the 1964 Moscow seminar on the publication and translation of works by African and Asian writers. It was attended by literary critics, translators and writers from Asian and African countries and its materials were published in Moscow in English under the title Literature Unites Peoples.

p By the mid-1960s the main trend in the development of African literature came into evidence. It was a realistic trend and it gained in strength in the course of a difficult struggle against the opposing modernistic trend, which was particularly pronounced in poetry. At the same time Western critics began to slight the publicistic poetry which was so topical in Africa during the period of active struggle for independence and which became clearly manifest, for instance, in Modern African Poetry, a collection that was put out in London. Articles against the realistic trend in African pros-e were also published. In this period the polemic over the works of African writers gradually developed into an acute ideological struggle over a broader question, that of the ways of Africa’s development in general. It became obvious that the time had come to discuss certain topical problems concerning the development of African literature.

p This was done at the close of 1966 at a conference at the Gorky Institute of World Literature of the USSR Academy of Sciences which was attended by poets and critics from a number of African countries as well as Soviet literary critics.

p Most of the bilateral contacts between Soviet and African 300 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1980/UCOA319/20080107/319.tx" writers were established within the framework of the Movement of Solidarity of Asian and African Writers which arose at the end of the 1950s as a result of the national liberation struggle.

p This movement has taken the form of conferences which are regularly organised in different countries and at which writers raise questions that are not only of a professional nature: they talk about the civic duty of writers, about the struggle for peace, and discuss the problems of the cultural development of their respective countries.

p Speaking at the first conference which met at Tashkent in 1958 the Ghanaian poetess Efua T. Sutherland called it a step towards putting an end to mankind’s disunity. She said that it was necessary to search for practical ways of strengthening cultural links between peoples and removing all barriers. The same thought was expressed at the 1967 Beirut Conference by the Kenyan writer John Mwango who noted that it was most important for the writers of the socialist and African countries to maintain close contacts in order to ensure a permanent bilateral exchange of ideas and materials.

p The exchange of ideas gained in scope as African countries advanced along the road of independent development. The building of a new society, and a modern culture in particular, proved to be an extremely complicated job that involved difficulties which the leaders of many young states, obviously enough, could not have foreseen.

p The heightened interest in socialist ideas, in the Soviet Union and its culture manifested itself not only in literature. Indicative in this respect are the words of the Ghanaian writer Jawa Apronti who said that the value of a written work depends not only on its literary qualities but also on the degree to which it serves the socially and culturally justified aims of society. He referred to Gorky’s experience and his creative principles and thus emphasised the importance of that proletarian writer for the young African literatures.

p New ideas and views find their way into the literature of African countries in the course of the reorganisation of the life of their peoples which makes the expansion of ties, the establishment of contacts and adoption of experience necessary and inevitable. Africa is beginning to take a real interest in Soviet literature.

p The influence of Maxim Gorky’s works, particularly of his novel Mother, is evident in Sembene Ousmane’s novel Les bouts de bois de Dieu dealing with the struggle of African railway workers for their rights.

p The aesthetics of socialist realism is having a perceptible impact on writings of another African author, Alex La Guma of South Africa, who has written a number of works about the life of the indigent population of his country. By mirroring the formation of the class awareness of the working people his works help them surmount the barriers created by the authorities. In his story The Portrait La Guma expressed the feelings of many progressive Africans, their profound respect for Lenin, one of the world’s greatest thinkers. The influence of Marxist ideas on the world outlook of African writers is clearly seen in the works of another Kenyan novelist James Ngugi.

There is no doubt that the exchange of ideas and views is also promoted by direct contacts between Soviet and African writers, by the trips of Soviet authors to African countries, and visits to the USSR of their African counterparts. Prominent African writers, including Sembene Ousmane (Senegal), John Pepper Clark (Nigeria), Efua T. Sutherland (Ghana), James Ngugi (Kenya) and Mengistu Lemma (Ethiopia) visited the USSR. In recent years works by Russian classics and Soviet writers have been made available to the African reader not only in French and English translations but also in Hausa, Swahili, Amharic, and other African languages.  [301•7  Closer and broader ties are developing between the creative intelligentsia of Africa and the Soviet Union and they will undoubtedly stimulate the development of the young African literatures and contribute to the continent’s complete cultural decolonisation.