后殖民东非文学概述

本文探讨后殖民东非文学关于写作语言、民众文学、见证文学三个热点问题。这些问题实质上表明何为后殖民东非知识分子的作用与责任这一根本问题。对此,以尼古基为首的许多东非作家的回应是:用非洲本土语言书写普普通通、各行各业的东非民众,打造民有、民治、民享的非洲文学。

A Critical Survey of Postcolonial Literature in East Africa

This paper is a critical survey of postcolonial literature in east Africa,focusing on the three major issues faced by east African writers in the postcolonial era: the writing language debate,the role of popular literature,and the emergence of testimonial literature.These issues are all manifestations of a single underlying question: What are the role and responsibility of the intellectual in postcolonial east Africa? Headed by Ngugi Wa Thing’o,many east African writers have responded to this question by choosing to write in African languages so as to create a literature that is not only about everyday east African people in all their diversity,but for and,in most cases,by them.