Literature and Anti-Colonialism in Central Africa: A Regional Narrative of Resistance, Identity, and Reclamation

Introduction

Central African literature in English may have arrived late to the African literary landscape, but it has since developed into a rich and nuanced body of work. One of the most dominant and enduring themes in this literature is anti-colonialism. Writers across Malawi, Zimbabwe, and Zambia have engaged creatively and critically with the legacy of colonial rule, using fiction, poetry, and drama to explore cultural alienation, political oppression, resistance, and nation-building. This article presents an expansive analysis of how anti-colonial themes have evolved in Central African literatures in English, and how different authors and genres have contributed to this intellectual and artistic struggle.

1. The Birth of Anti-Colonial Literature in Malawi

David Rubadiri and the Negritude Spirit

Malawi’s David Rubadiri is arguably the first major Central African writer to compose literature in English. His early poetry, including “An African Thunderstorm” (1965), channels a pan-African, negritude-like celebration of African vitality, dignity, and resilience. In defiance of colonial depictions of Africa as barbaric and deficient, Rubadiri reimagines the continent as a place of force, rhythm, and natural grandeur.

His work can be situated alongside negritude poets like Léopold Sédar Senghor, in that it valorizes the African identity and turns nature into a metaphor for the coming revolution and renewal. It is a poetic celebration of Africa that challenges colonial narrative frameworks and places African identity at the center of pride and aesthetic energy.

Kayira and Kachingwe: Literature of Cultural Reclamation

In Legson Kayira’s The Looming Shadow (1968) and Jingala (1969), anti-colonialism takes on a sharper edge. These novels express urgency about the erosion of African traditions under the pressures of Western modernity. The conflict is not only political but cultural and psychological. The idea that colonial modernity erases indigenous symbolic systems highlights the role of literature in reclaiming a sense of self.

Aubrey Kachingwe’s No Easy Task (1966), the first Malawian novel in English, reflects on the transformation of political consciousness through education—ironically, one of the very tools used by the colonial state for ideological control. In Kachingwe’s view, education becomes a double-edged sword: a colonial instrument turned into an avenue for liberation.

Edison Mpina and the Legacy of Land Loss

Although written decades later, Edison Mpina’s Freedom Avenue (1990) revisits a foundational grievance of colonialism: land alienation. The novel depicts the appropriation of land by white tea plantation owners and the displacement of Malawians into a regional labor diaspora. The novel weaves personal and collective trauma into a wider anti-colonial commentary, making economic dispossession central to its resistance narrative.

2. Zimbabwe: Revolution and Reflection

Literature and the Liberation Struggle

In Zimbabwe, literature was tightly bound to political events, especially the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) in 1965 by Ian Smith’s white-minority regime. This event radicalized the country’s political landscape and galvanized writers into a cultural movement of resistance and conscientization.

Solomon Mutswairo’s Feso (1956), originally in Shona but later translated into English in 1974, allegorizes colonialism through inter-ethnic African conflict. Despite its subtlety, the novel was banned by colonial authorities, a testament to literature’s potency. His later work, Chaminuka: Prophet of Zimbabwe (1983), revisits indigenous spiritual heritage and constructs a heroic narrative of resistance, grounded in Zimbabwean mythology.

Samkange’s Historical Revisions

Stanlake Samkange’s My Trial for My Country (1967) is one of the first Zimbabwean novels in English and retells the tragic meeting between King Lobengula and Cecil Rhodes, highlighting how colonial conquest often stemmed from deliberate cultural misunderstandings. His other works, like Year of Uprising (1975) and On My Trial for that UDI (1986), provide historical fiction interlaced with polemic, paying homage to early resistors and critiquing both colonial repression and exile.

Mungoshi, Katiyo, and Psychological Resistance

The younger generation of Zimbabwean writers—Charles Mungoshi, Wilson Katiyo, and Musaemura Zimunya—pushed anti-colonial discourse further by focusing on its psychological and emotional damage.

Mungoshi’s Waiting for the Rain (1975) juxtaposes the First Chimurenga with the 1970s guerrilla struggle, exploring generational conflict and the fracturing of tradition.
His short stories in Coming of the Dry Season (1972) present a bleak vision of colonial alienation and economic disempowerment.
Katiyo’s Son of the Soil (1976) traces the coming-of-age of a colonized boy, capturing how colonial education and racial oppression deform identity.

3. Zambian Resistance Literature: Nationhood and Cultural Assertion

Kenneth Kaunda’s Political Autobiography

The cornerstone of Zambian anti-colonial writing is Kenneth Kaunda’s Zambia Shall Be Free (1962). Blending personal biography with nationalist rhetoric, Kaunda maps the country’s liberation trajectory and highlights the philosophical vision of a postcolonial Zambia.

Fictional Resistance in Novels

Dominic Mulaisho’s The Tongue of the Dumb (1971) tells of a precolonial village resisting colonial intrusion and Christianization. Its philosophical undertones and sociopolitical insight make it one of Zambia’s most important fictional engagements with colonialism.
Kapasa Makasa’s Bwana District Commissioner (1989) and Binwell Sinyangwe’s A Cowrie of Hope (2000) explore both the institutional violence of colonialism and the economic hardships it created, especially for women.
Andreya Masiye’s Before Dawn (1970) and Gideon Phiri’s Victims of Fate (1972) examine social collapse under modernity, including urbanization, taboo, and generational displacement.

4. Poetry as Political Weapon

Malawi: Rubadiri and Chipasula

Rubadiri’s poem “When Mutesa Met Kabaka” interrogates the early encounters between African kings and colonial agents, exploring how traditional institutions were manipulated. Frank Chipasula, particularly in Whispers in the Wings (1991), brings a diasporic lens to colonialism, tackling racial hierarchies and exile.

Zambia: From Elegy to Class Critique

Zambian poets like Patu Simoko (Africa is Made of Clay, 1975) and L.C. Mambwe (Africa is Mine and Yours, 1989) combine cultural nationalism with economic critique. Mambwe, for instance, links colonial dispossession to neocolonial class oppression. Similarly, Lyamba wa Kabika’s Swimming in Floods of Tears (1983) stands in solidarity with liberation movements across Africa, blending political protest with humanist empathy.

Zimbabwean Poetry: Historicization and National Pride

Musaemura Zimunya’s Zimbabwe Ruins (1979) embodies poetic resistance by anchoring identity in precolonial greatness (Great Zimbabwe), thereby undermining colonial temporality. In Kingfisher, Jikinya and Other Poems (1983), Zimunya’s “Jikinya” becomes a symbol of national and gendered identity, celebrating African womanhood and cultural continuity.

5. Theatre and Oral Tradition as Resistance

Malawian Theatre

Steve Chimombo’s The Rainmaker (1975) mines Malawian myth and ritual to create a dramatic narrative rooted in indigenous religious performance. This reclamation of oral heritage becomes a powerful tool for countering Western theatrical forms and values.

Zambian Dramatic Histories

Fwanya Mulikita’s Shaka Zulu reinterprets the life of the famed warrior-king to explore the mfecane’s impact on Central African identity.
Andreya Masiye’s The Lands of the Kazembe (1973) dramatizes local precolonial kingdoms, emphasizing African sovereignty before colonial incursion.
Kasoma’s The Fools Marry (1976) and Killian Mulaisho’s The Tragedy of Pride (1988) shift focus to the interpersonal and domestic, portraying colonialism’s legacy in everyday struggles.

Zimbabwean Urban Drama

Stephen Chifunyise’s Medicine for Love and Other Plays (1984) brings anti-colonial tensions into the modern city. The conflict between tradition and modernity, shaped by colonial legacies, unfolds in urban spaces, underscoring the persistence of colonial wounds in the postcolonial present.

Conclusion

Central African literature in English has powerfully contributed to anti-colonial discourse by centering African voices, histories, and perspectives. Whether in poetry, prose, or drama, these writers reclaim space for cultural affirmation, critique the enduring scars of colonialism, and chart pathways for psychological, political, and social emancipation.

In doing so, they not only document a history of oppression and resistance but also reimagine the future—one rooted in African knowledge systems, dignity, and creative agency. Their works ensure that the struggle against colonialism continues not just in memory, but in ongoing acts of storytelling and cultural renewal.