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African Literature Quotes

Browse 47 quotes about African Literature.

African Literature Quotes

“Notwithstanding the memories of slavery, and in the face poverty, ignorance, terrorism, and subjugation still deeply woven into their lives, the embittered past of blacks was taken onto a much higher plane of intellectual and artistic consideration during the Renaissance.”

“Africa! Africa! Africa! Africa my motherland! Africa, your people cries for you! Africans must educate their citizens. Africans must reach out to it's people and empower them to build the nation. Africans you are the only people who can liberated your citizens from poverty through education. Africans must pay the price to rebuild the continent.”

“Mother! Ripped apart. Reaped stones of poverty, weeds that sprouted. Grown to fast, crowned young mother. HIV reaped the harvest of my parents left me with nothing but toddler to take care of. Robbed my youth and my hey days, left naked among a thousand suns. The splendor, the splendor of pain. My face is beautiful broken pottery, a poetry art scene. The screams inside ravage and rammer the very child born along thorns of anguish.”

“To be able to influence Tanzanian literature and African literature, and sell our books in Tanzania as well as in our continent, we need to be committed to what we do. And what we do is writing. Write as much as you can. Read as much as you can. Use the library and the internet carefully for research and talk to people, about things that matter. To make a living from writing, and make people read again in Tanzania and Africa; we must write very well, very good stories.”

“Most people write me off when they see me. They do not know my story. They say I am just an African. They judge me before they get to know me. What they do not know is The pride I have in the blood that runs through my veins; The pride I have in my rich culture and the history of my people; The pride I have in my strong family ties and the deep connection to my community; The pride I have in the African music, African art, and African dance; The pride I have in my name and the meaning behind it. Just as my name has meaning, I too will live my life with meaning. So you think I am nothing? Don’t worry about what I am now, For what I will be, I am gradually becoming. I will raise my head high wherever I go Because of my African pride, And nobody will take that away from me.”

“You can no longer see or identify yourself solely as a member of a tribe, but as a citizen of a nation of one people working toward a common purpose.”

“The Whiteman told of another country beyond the sea where a powerful woman sat on a throne while men and women danced under the shadow of her authority and benevolence. She was ready to spread the shadow to cover the Agikuyu. They laughed at this eccentric man whose skin had been so scalded that the black outside had peeled off. The hot water must have gone into his head. Nevertheless, his words about a woman on the throne echoed something in the heart, deep down in their history. It was many, many years ago. Then women ruled the land of the Agikuyu. Men had no property, they were only there to serve the whims and needs of the women. Those were hard years. So they waited for women to go to war, they plotted a revolt, taking an oath of secrecy to keep them bound each to each in the common pursuit of freedom. They would sleep with all the women at once, for didn't they know the heroines would return hungry for love and relaxation? Fate did the rest; women were pregnant; the takeover met with little resistance.”

“There are bishops, knights and queens. Once they fought for their people, going to prison and refusing to come out unless the white man went west. Everyone demonstrated while their leaders were in prison, demanding their unconditional release, their names written with wet paint across huge placards... 'Our dear savior, so and so,' they yelled. In torn and bloody clothes, their heroes waved to the crowds, as big trucks waited to whisk them off to maximum-security prisons. They were adored and worshiped. Heroes, my foot! Saviors? Bullshit!" Kangu was suddenlt trembling with rage. "Imagine calling somebody a hero without knowing his motives, just because a poor African boy went to University and read a few of Martin Luther King's speeches. Maybe he was just looking for fame, or eyeng the fat farms of the white man. Then the 'hero' suddenly finds himself wallowing in power, money and sex... All the things he's dreamed of, but never seen. He forgets what he was fighting for, and becomes meaner than the white man ever was; he becomes the devil.”

“A dance with the clouds. After this dance what next. When charcoal becomes ambers and fire remind us about sweet melodies. When human emotions stop to sing and we marry our sins. A dance in between fences and living inside furnaces. A million stars had dropped, a million moons spurred hope under our broken shadows. I remain here, I remain dancing with the clouds.”

“I’m black that’s what runs deep inside my soul. I’m Nile that what makes me perennial I’m Okavango that’s what makes me mysterious I’m the lake Tanganyika thus what bellows deep inside I’m black,I’m deep jet I’m Chinhoyi thus what makes me constant I’m Kalahari thus what makes me amazing I’m black as an onyx I’m coal that’s what makes me thermal”

“Petunias The mind filled, littered and polluted by black petunias The horror of the naked decaying sun over our heads Graves crumbling, hills erecting, mountains sinking The stinking, smelling melodious melodies Yarrows growing in my heart Rage on my body Anger on my soul Darkness of all the hate Manifesting Xyris the abandoned beauty Eyes dogged and damned!”

“I WAS ABUSED! I WAS A VICTIM OF ABUSE. HE SPIT SPUT, DOGGED MY SPINE, DAMAGED MY RIB, PUNCHED MY FACE, RIPPED MY CLOTHES OFF. MOURNED ON MY BODY, SQUEEZED MY SKIN, PIMPED AND POUNDED THROUGH IT, CUT MY HYMEN INTO TINY PIECES OF FLESH, GONG GONG THE CATHOLIC BELL. RUN THROUGH ME, POISED AND MY BACK WAS HIS BRIDGE. PRUNED MY UNRIPE SKIN, FETISH ON MY SKIN I WAS THERE WATCHING HIM. SEPARATED FROM MY BODY AND SOUL. A VINE WITH OUT FLAVOR THAT WHAT HE LEFT. A VINE WITHOUT TASTE THAT WHAT HE LEFT.”

“That struggle between the fallible ambition of man to lean towards immortality and the fleshly evidence of his certain mortality; that tormenting battle with his consciousness, which is able to live vicariously at any point in time, which dreams, loves, hopes, and aspires to the immortal, but is always brought down to earth by his flesh, this container in which he has been contained, and which will inevitably return to the earth to rot. Too much dreaming, and he begins to forget his fallibility and, believing himself to be infallible, he commits horrendous acts of ambition which amount to crimes against humanity; too much dying, and he begins to forget the sacredness of life, the beauty of dreaming, to live in fear and be paralyzed by fear.”

“Because we were not in our country, we could not use our own languages, and so when we spoke our voices came out bruised. When we talked, our tongues thrashed madly in our mouths, staggered like drunken men. Because we were not using our languages we said things we did not mean; what we really wanted to say remained folded inside. trapped. In America we did not always have the words. It was only when were were by ourselves that we spoke in our real voices. When we were alone we summoned the horses of our languages and mounted their backs and galloped past skyscrapers. Always, we were reluctant to come back.”

“Now when the men talk, their voices burn in the air, making smoke all over the place. We hear about change, about new country, about democracy, about elections and what-what. They talk and talk, the men, lick their lips and look at the dead watches on their wrists and shake their hands and slap each other and laugh like they have swallowed thunder.”

“Are we above or is just another story? Is it human nature? Is it just a norm? Is it segregation causing these deadly wars? Is poverty leading us to the stagnant sea of prostitution? Is the pauperism playing a role in tarnishing our image? Is paucity injecting a lethal poison in our morals? Is penury eating civilization and destroying families? Is the prison meant for classes in the society? Is bribery a new Godly law? Are drugs manufactured for us to numb the pain? Are we scared of reality? Is it true that fathers are disappearing in the society podium? Is it true that the lack of manhood is the root of all question marks? Is it true that the adequate fathers in the society are destroying the sanity of children? Is it true that our uncontrollable passions are born because we lack a muse”