The East is home to the short story, and many other literary forms previously thought of as originating from the West. The oldest recorded novel, The Tale of Genji, came from Japan 1,000 years ago. Five hundred years before the birth of Christ, the Japanese were already breathing literature and writing poetry as a way of life.
Some of the African writings gain attention in the West where the poignant slave narratives, such as the Interesting Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789) which described vividly the horrors of slavery and the slave trade. As Africans became literate in their own languages, they often reacted against colonial repression in their writings. Others looked to their own past for subjects .
Since the early 19th century writers from Western Africa have used newspapers to air their news. Several founded newspapers that served as vehicles for expressing nascent nationalist feelings. Their poetry not only denounced colonialism, it proudly asserted the validity of the cultures that the colonials had tried to crush.
After World War II, as Africans began demanding their independence, more African writers were published. All were writing in European languages, and often they shared the same themes: the clash between indigenous and colonial cultures, condemnation of European subjugation, pride in the African past, and hope for the continence independent future.
Chinese literature is just as ancient, if not more so. The Chinese, in fact, exerted considerable influence on the Japanese, who for some time sent its scholars to the mainland to study Chinese culture, system of government as well as various other aspects of Chinese life. This shows the deference the Japanese accorded China for its advanced civilization. Chinese influenced on Japanese life partly explains the striking similarity to this day between Chinese and Japanese arts, literature and life ways. The Chinese were already writing 5,000 years before and have over the last 2,000 years, developed a continuing oral literary tradition of anecdotes, fables, myths, and legends.
The Persian and the Arabs brought the Golden Age of learning to Europe, which started the Renaissance or the Period of Enlightenment. To the Persians we owe our Algebra, and the first school of Astronomy established in Baghdad. Most Persian poetry were written in Urdu, an important language in India and Pakistan to this day. this explains the influenced of Indian Panchatantra on the Arabian tales of The Thousand and One Nights, and Persian influenced, in turn, on Indian literature.
Arabic literature on the other hand which has Persian and Indian influences, casts its influence on most of the Muslim world, a sphere that radiates to half the globe- as far in the Middle East as Egypt which is closer to the continent of Africa, and in Southeast Asia as Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, and Muslim Mindanao in Southern Philippines. Its influence on Egypt is also partly why by extension, African literature is classified together with Asian literature.
But aside from common language roots, you will note, how much closer the Afro-Asian experience is to our own. Such is reflected in literature. Most Asian countries and Africa have a common colonial past. Except for China and Japan, most of us have, at one time or another been under colonial rule: under Spain and America for the Philippines, and the Dutch and the British empires for the rest of Asia and Africa. We share common tragic experiences, such as poverty and oppression. Their stories are our stories. Our struggles have been their struggles. In the past Filipinos have had a very little exposure to the literature of our Afro-Asian neighbors. Our parents and grandparents were more familiar with American and English literature, which is just as well, all literature is educating.But it is also about time we got acquainted with our Afro-Asian by virtue of closer geography and shared colonial experience.
Oral literature, including stories, dramas, riddles, histories, myths, songs, proverbs and other expressions, is frequently employed to educate and entertain children. Oral histories, myths, and proverbs additionally serve to remind whole communities for their ancestors' heroic deeds, their past, and the precedents for their customs and traditions. Essential to oral literature is a concern for presentation and oratory. Folktale tellers used call-response techniques.
Most of our neighbors' stories were translated from the original languages in which they were written (Chinese, Japanese, Urdu, Sanskrit, Bengali, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Hebrew, Arabic, or to the language of the colonizers) into English. Each literature grouping carries some distinctive scent and flavors that make it exotic and fascinating. Each literary group represents a rich variety of cultures, as Arabic and Persian cultures(both once big empires) were enrich by the culture of their subjects in much the same way that African literature is a rich conglomeration of once colonies and colonizers. One big distinction from the west is the deep influence of the Eastern thoughts and Philosophy in the literature of these countries. There is a sense, that you are reading the distillation of ancient thoughts and experience,also that thousand of years may have evolve, yet man's basic instincts and feelings remain the same. Enjoy the stories and take pride that we are part of this refined and long tradition, the Afro-Asian literary tradition.
