This original Penguin collection covers writing in European and native languages from the whole African continent in the last hundred years. It adds depth and perspective to our understanding of Africa s current literary revolution. This, as the editors make clear, is not a spontaneous creation, but was produced over a period of time by minds grappling with the changing realities of emergent Africa, and adapting to their own use the received linguistic tools to express them. This anthology reveals the beginnings of the African novel written in French and English, the recent attempt to write prose in vernacular languages, and the experimental writing which is now taking place. Many of the translations have never before appeared in English.