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Nadine Gordimer was born on the 20th of November 1923 at Springs, Transvaal, South Africa. She is a South African novelist and a short-story writer. Her works revolve around the themes of ostracism and alienation. Gordimer is also a recipient of the Booker Prize in 1974 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991 (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2023). Gordimer was born and raised in a privileged white middle-class family. She began writing at the age of 9 and published her first story in a magazine at the age of 15. Through her writing, she builds a strong opposition on the official South African policy of racial segregation, known as apartheid. Apart from writing, she taught at various universities in the United States during the 1960s to ‘70s. Gordimer died on the 13th of July 2014 at the age of 90.

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On July 9, 1927, David Mandessi Diop was born in Bordeaux, France, to a Cameroonean mother and a Sengalese father. Although he grew up in France and lived most of his life there, Diop spent significant time living and teaching in Africa, which helped reinforce his opposition to European society. Consequently, many of his poems discuss his empathy with Africa and the movement for independence from French Colonialists. He authored Africa my Africa.

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Africa is home to extraordinary intellectual effervescence. Yet, many myths about Africa persist into the twenty-first century, despite the efforts of thousands of scholars to eradicate them. The myth that Africa had no writing and no history is one of the most persistent. African literature isn't just the voices of African people during colonialism and the slave trade.It covers the stories of African people before colonialism, during colonialism, and after colonialism (this is known as post-colonial literature). African literature reflects the stories of people from hundreds of years ago and the people who live now.  It is a hugely important part of the literary world as it brings underrepresented voices to the fore and allows them to re-tell their experiences of the world. African literature includes oral literature or orature, the term coined by Ugandan scholar Pio Zirimu. Orature may be in prose or verse. The prose is often mythological or historical.

Characteristics of AFRICAN LITERATURE

African literatures are ancient

African literatures are vibrant today

African literatures are of high literary quality

African literatures have been globally important

African literatures are also written by and about African women

Prevalent Themes of African Poetry

Poets of the colonialism, post colonial period included some of these themes in their works:

Colonialism

Liberation

Personal relationships

Traditions

Rootlessness

Religion

Mysticism

During the modern age, the themes of African poetry include:

Nature

Urbanism

Moral And Societal Decadence

Tributes

Hope And Faith

Political Criticisms

Emotions

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This poem is about African culture, history, colonial past, its people, and a sense of liberty Africa will experience in the near future. The title of the poem “Africa” or “Africa my Africa” displays the poet's love for the nation.

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This poem features a number of themes that include identity, nationalism, history, cultural heritage, colonial atrocities, and slavery. The overall poem orbits around the theme of patriotism, the poet’s unshakable devotion for his motherland, Africa.

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David Diop’s poem “Africa” reflects his hope for an independent African nation, and the problems brought to the continent by colonialism. Through this poem and other writings, Mr. Diop attempts to give a message of hope and resistance to the people of Africa.

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Africa has been colonized for many years, and African people struggled and suffered before they were freed. This poem made me realize that nationalism, hope, and unity are the keys to freedom and liberation from any forms of oppression. If nationalism prevails, the nation’s freedom will be served. With hope and unity in the hearts of everyone, nothing is impossible to achieve, even the freedom that people have been longing for.

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Exposition

Someone has written to the narrator, requesting her to contribute to the anthology of stories for children, however the writer refused. She then remembers the events from last night. She was awakened by the creaking noises, believing it to be an intrusion. After realizing that the creaking noises weren’t from an intrusion, she was unable to sleep and then started telling her a bedtime story of a man, a wife, and a little boy who was living happily ever after in a secluded suburb, a city with their trusted housemaid, itinerant gardener, and pets.

Rising Action

For when the family were living happily ever after, they were warned by the husband’s mother to not to take anyone off the streets despite of being inscribed in a medical benefit society and local neighborhood watch which supplied them a plaque saying YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. Their fear of “others” drive them to add more precautions in their house in which the little boy was interested in.

Climax

The little boy pretended to be a Prince who braved the thicket of thorns and climbed up to the barbed wire, and with its razor-teeth in his knees, hands, and head, he screamed and struggled deeper into its tangle.

Falling Action

The trusted housemaid and the itinerant gardener came to help the little boy. The itinerant gardener tried to rescue the little boy, but he failed. The man and the wife hurried to the garden and for some reasons, the alarm set up against the screams while the bleeding little boy was hacked out in the barbed wire.

Denouement

The little boy died, and his body was carried by the man, the wife, the housemaid, and the gardener into the house.

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1. Narrator. The narrator of the story is the author itself, Nadine Gordimer. In the beginning, she acts as a writer who refuses to write a children’s story. After refusing the request, she was awakened by the creaking noise she heard and finds it hard to sleep again so she decided to tell a story to herself.

2. Man. The man in the story is the husband of the wife and the father of the little boy, the man in the story served as the ultimate provider. He demands nearly all the security precautions in the story to console his wife’s concerns as he loved her very much. He is certain that his family is fully secured without realizing the potential danger that may occur in the environment that he created.

3. Wife. The wife is the little boy’s mother. She is very concerned with her family’s security inside the suburb and persuades her husband to improve the security precautions of their house. In the later part of the story, the mother also displays a substantial solicitude for the loiterers as she initiates to feed them. Her constant fear and worry resulted in more precautions that lead to the unforeseen danger of their little boy.

4. Little boy. The little boy is the husband and wife’s son, he is adventurous, playful, and full of innocence. In the end of the story, the little boy died by climbing through the security coil.

5.   Wise old witch. The wise old witch is the husband’s mother who warned the couple to not take anyone off the street as she views other people as dangerous and indolent.

6. Trusted housemaid. The trusted housemaid is one of the people that the husband and wife trust the most. She is one of the chosen individuals from what they called “outside” who is permitted to work in the couple’s house. In the story, the housemaid seemed to be worried about her safety as well due to the violence involving housemaids in the suburb. The housemaid also appears to create boundary between herself and other Black people, which she views as vagrants.

7. Itinerant Gardener. The itinerant gardener is one of the Black people who was permitted to work in the couple’s house. In the story, he attempted to save the life of the little boy but he failed.

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The major theme of the story revolves around fear, insecurity, and racism.

This story depicts the theme of fear. All throughout the story, the fear of being unsafe and the fear of “others” was evident in the husband, wife, and the housemaid resulting in creating more precautions to improve the security of their house without realizing the consequences and the unforeseen danger that it may bring to their family. Moreover, the theme of insecurity is also present. In the story, the man and the wife show an obsession with making their home secured, no security precautions can make them feel safe that lead them to one of the destructive decisions of their life. Lastly, this story illustrates the theme of racism, as the story clearly presents the segregation of white people from the black people. In the story, the white people are situated inside the suburb while the black people were situated “outside” the suburb in which violence and riots were rampant.

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This short story teaches us that fear can be destructive. In the story, fear was all over the characters; they were overcome by the fear of "others" and the fear of insecurity that led them to make irrational decisions.

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Human fear has destructive power and can create a great divide. In the story, the man and the wife were consumed by the fear of intrusion and violence as they viewed people of color as dangerous and indolent. As a result, they set their family apart from those people. Their racist perspective led them to create an environment that resulted in the great destruction of their lives as the life of their son was taken away by the precautions they installed in the house, believing they were protecting their family. This story reminds me to not let myself be consumed by fear, as it can lead us to make irrational decisions, and we should rethink our fears, enabling ourselves to overcome them. On the other hand, this story made me realize that anything that is too much is bad. In the story, the family formed an obsession with making their house secure by installing all the possible security precautions they thought of because they were worried too much about their security. The same goes with our lives and decisions; we should always find a balance in everything, and we should think about what really matters in our lives. Creating a boundary on everything that we do and think of can save us in many ways because we humans create our own destiny and we hold our own lives.