SOURCE: Dodgson, Pauline. “An Analysis of Modern African Literature.” In Contemporary Literary Criticism, vol. 163, edited by Tom Burns and Jeffrey W. Hunter. Farmington Hills, Mich.: The Gale Group, 2002.

In the following essay, Dodgson examines the history and diversity of modern African literature, focusing on the movement's major writers, significant works, and critical response.

Folktale and Tradition

African writers began to reach an audience beyond their own country and region in the late 1940s and 1950s. Two of the first modern African works to gain international recognition were the Nigerian writer Amos Tutuola's work The Palm-Wine Drinkard (1952) and the Guinean writer Camara Laye's novel L'enfant noir (1953; translated as The Dark Child, 1954).

Tutuola, a man of little formal education, was working as a messenger in the colonial service in Nigeria when he started his career as a writer. The Palm-Wine Drinkard is his first and best-known work. It is usually...