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The relationship between Africa and Europe in literature is one marked by contrasts, myths, and shifting insider/outsider dynamics. In African oral traditions, Europeans were initially absent but later became central figures once colonial contact reshaped the continent’s cultural and political realities. Africans and Europeans developed parallel myths about each other, each group casting the other as “outsider,” deviant, or peculiar. This mutual stereotyping found expression in oral narratives, colonial literature, and eventually, postcolonial novels that sought to dismantle myths of racial superiority and inequality.
This article explores the evolution of Europe’s representation in African oral and written literature, the mutual stereotypes that shaped colonial discourse, and how African writers redefined Africa–Europe relations in their postcolonial narratives.
Africa versus Europe in Oral Literature
In precolonial oral traditions, Europeans rarely featured in stories. However, with the arrival of colonialism, they became significant figures in songs, folktales, and narratives. Oral stories frequently depicted Europeans as strangers, ghost-like beings, or creatures from distant lands, signaling their status as outsiders.
These portrayals often explained material inequality through mythical narratives of distribution:
- Europeans were said to have received the first choice of resources—books, paper, money, guns, and machines—leaving Africans with little.
- White outsiders were imagined as supernatural or strange beings, living underwater or hailing from the land of the dead.
Such stories reflect a collective African imagination grappling with colonial domination, but they also reveal a self-image of victimization and material deprivation in contrast to the Europeans’ apparent power.
Stereotypes and the Myth of the Outsider
The insider/outsider divide between Africans and Europeans was mutually reinforced through stereotypes:
- European Stereotypes of Africans: Africans were portrayed in colonial discourse as lazy, uncivilized, animal-like, and sexually dangerous—a myth justifying European dominance. Works such as Conrad’s Heart of Darkness epitomized this outsider image of Africans.
- African Stereotypes of Europeans: Oral and written literatures often mirrored this logic, depicting Europeans as ape-like (because of their straight hair), pig-like (due to their skin color), sexually immoral, greedy, lazy, and exploitative. European “civilization” was even questioned by pointing to the devastation of two world wars.
This mutual mistrust and myth-making on both sides of the colonial fence created barriers to understanding, fueling suspicion, resentment, and resistance.
Africa Writes Back: Colonial and Postcolonial Novels
While oral traditions often depicted Europeans as outsiders with supernatural power, African written literature challenged and reinterpreted this image.
- In Cheikh Hamidou Kane’s Ambiguous Adventure (1961), a character remarks, “From the white men, we have to learn how you become the boss without being right.” This highlights the paradox of colonial authority, where domination was maintained without moral legitimacy.
- Chinua Achebe, through works like Things Fall Apart, critiqued the colonial misrepresentation of Africans and exposed the destructive nature of European intrusion.
- Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and other postcolonial writers used fiction to dismantle myths of white superiority, instead portraying colonialism as a system of exploitation and racism.
African writers who initially addressed European audiences wrote in colonial languages to confront the colonizers directly. However, this strategy eventually shifted as writers began focusing on African readerships, reclaiming insider authority.
Changing Representations in Contemporary Literature
By the 1950s and 1960s, white characters continued to play visible roles in African fiction because of the colonial situation. Writers used literature as a tool to critique colonial exploitation and redefine Africa–Europe relations.
However, in contemporary African literature, the European no longer plays a central role. As colonialism receded, new power dynamics emerged, focusing on:
- Wealth inequality
- Labor and class divisions
- Language politics
- Gender relations
Thus, the theme of Africa versus Europe gave way to internal struggles within African societies, where insiders and outsiders are redefined not by race but by socio-economic and cultural factors.
Conclusion
The portrayal of Europe in African literature reflects a complex history of power, resistance, and myth-making. From oral traditions that cast Europeans as ghostly outsiders, to colonial novels that debated racial superiority, to postcolonial works that dismantled myths of domination, African literature has continuously negotiated its relationship with Europe.
While colonial encounters fostered mutual stereotypes that hindered understanding, literature became a platform for reclaiming African voices and redefining insider/outsider identities. In today’s literary landscape, the focus has shifted from Africa versus Europe to new internal power struggles, showing how literature evolves alongside social realities.
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