In this anthology the editor has included short stories, extracts from novels and epics, fables, parables, songs, satires, dirges, laments, boasts and epigrams. African poet Chinweizu draws on his country's many traditions, oral and written, folk and elite, to create a collection that redefines perceptions of African literature. He includes literature translated from indigenous African languages and literature composed in the languages of Africa's invaders. Together, these many voices describe African life in all its diversity - love and war, birth and death, religion and marriage, flora and fauna, flood, famine and drought - and paint a picture of Africa in the 20th century.