Connecting North and sub-Saharan Africa through literature, film, and music

An unresolved issue in African literary studies is whether North and sub-Saharan Africa are disconnected from one another, or whether they share elements that can further our understanding of the cultures from which they emerge. Since the mid-twentieth century, due to growing interest in Islam and the Arab world on the global scene, the Arab side of North African identity has been given paramount recognition. More often than not, North Africa is considered part of the Middle East rather than an integral member of an African community, although in spite of shifting political winds in recent years, the literatures that have emerged from North Africa have been firmly embedded in African literary traditions since antiquity, and share strong links with their sub-Saharan counterparts.;Few literary scholars have connected North Africa to the rest of the continent, and those few have done so primarily, if not exclusively, from a francophone standpoint. This fledging scholarship needs to be extended and complemented by validating the inclusion of North Africa in African literary studies, taking into consideration both francophone and non-francophone perspectives, as well as other genres, such as film and music. This analysis of works from north and south of the Sahara demonstrates that, in spite of an academic tendency to divide Africa by the vast Sahara, the literatures and cultures of North Africa are in fact deeply connected to broader African literary traditions.;Among the principal works under study are Driss Chraïbi's novel La Mère du printemps (1982), Assia Djebar's film La Nouba des femmes du mont Chenoua (1978), and a selection of Moroccan music. Chraïbi's fictional view of the Arab conquest of North Africa in the seventh century and Djebar's use of Arabic in cinema illustrate North Africa's relationship to Africa and the Arab World. The music of Gnawa communities in Morocco, whose origins are rooted in sub-Saharan Africa, points to strong historical ties between North Africa and the rest of the continent that date back at least to the sixteenth century, although evidence suggests that these ties were already developed as early as the twelfth century.;That these diverse North African works show connections to sub-Saharan cultures invites us to view both regions as a whole. Although North Africa has also had intimate ties with the Middle East since the Arab conquests of the seventh century, the Sahara desert does not constitute a boundary to the transfer of cultural references from one side to the other. The study of North Africa should, therefore, take into account the larger context of Africa; and, correspondingly, scholarship on African literatures should include the Northern part of the continent.