Africa my Africa
Africa of proud warriors in ancestral savannahs
Africa of whom my grandmother sings
On the banks of the distant river
I have never known you
But your blood flows in my veins
Your beautiful black blood that irrigates the fields
The blood of your sweat
The sweat of your work
The work of your slavery
Africa, tell me Africa
Is this your back that is unbent
This back that never breaks under the weight of humilation
This back trembling with red scars
And saying no to the whip under the midday sun
But a grave voice answers me
Impetuous child that tree, young and strong
That tree over there
Splendidly alone amidst white and faded flowers
That is your Africa springing up anew
springing up patiently, obstinately
Whose fruit bit by bit acquires
The bitter taste of liberty.

This is the most frequently anthologized of Diop’s poems, and it is also his most representative poem. Its enduring appeal comes from both the passion that it expresses and the voice it gives to Diop’s vision of his ancestral land.

As a Negritude poem, Africa celebrates Africa, albeit indirectly. It emphasizes the alienation of the poet-persona from his homeland. The separation from the continent intensifies the sense of loss that permeates the poem.

In this poem, the persona identifies with an Africa that he has not known personally. The Africa that one encounters in the poem is largely a product of the poet-persona’s imagination, because Diop wrote the poem before he had been to Africa. The only reason he claims to have an association with Africa is that the continent is his “ancestral” homeland. His knowledge of Africa in this poem is based on secondhand information and his idea of his own identity (“your blood flows in my veins”). But the most important aspect of the poem is its sense of history.

The poem presents three different phases in African history. The first six lines describe an Africa that is only an imagined space—and that is also romanticized. The poet can retrieve Africa’s glorious past (“of proud warriors in ancestral savannahs”) only by imagining it. This image is also necessary to enable him to establish a contrast between it and colonized Africa.

The next nine lines paint the pathetic picture of the era of enslavement and colonial subjugation. The section comes to its emotional climax with a set of rhetorical questions, in which the personified Africa is asked by a shocked and emphatic son about her agony (“Is this you”).

The last section hints at the imminence of reconstruction and restoration. The speaker represents the new Africa as a young tree “of splendid loveliness” that is springing up anew and “grows again patiently, obstinately.”

The poem transforms as it grows: it uses apostrophe and visual imagery effectively. In the first part of the poem, Africa is an identifiable physical space. In the second, it is a person. In the last, it assumes the symbolic image of a young but resilient tree that holds a lot of promise. The tone of the poem shifts from the nostalgic through the emphatic to the optimistic.

Categories: British Literature, Literature

Tags: Africa by David Diop analysis, Africa by David Diop character study, Africa by David Diop criticism, Africa by David Diop plot, Africa by David Diop summary, Africa by David Diop themes, Africa poem historical context, Africa poem interpretation, Africa poem meaning, Africa poem symbolism, Africa poem tone shift, African identity in poetry, African literature analysis, Analysis of David Diop's Africa, apostrophe in Africa poem, colonialism in African poetry, David Diop biography, David Diop literary analysis, David Diop literary themes, David Diop poem analysis, David Diop works, imagery in David Diop poetry, Negritude poetry analysis, postcolonial poetry themes