ABSTRACT
Only in the twentieth century did a written literary tradition develop. Until recently, most of the greatest works of African literature were written in English or French, not in indigenous African languages. Most well-educated Africans in the twentieth century were taught in European languages, and many considered those languages superior to their native tongues-or so they were told by their colonial masters. Since the 1970s and 1980s, there has been a movement among some African writers to produce literature in indigenous African languages. These writers, including Kenya’s Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Uganda’s Okot P’Bitek, believe that an African way of seeing and experiencing the world can only be expressed in an African language.
