Although storytelling is a universal human activity, the term "African fiction" refers to a European genre of storytelling—comprised of secular novels and short stories—that Africans have adopted and adapted to represent continental African realities in the wake of nineteenth- and twentieth-century European colonialism and post-colonialism. The genre will provide a unifying thread throughout the many oral and written traditions in African as well as European languages.

Although an ancient practice in Africa, as witnessed in pharaonic Egypt, writing in African languages began in Muslim and Christian missionary activity, some of which dates back to pre-modern times, as is the case for Geez or Amharic in Ethiopia. Other African languages such as Sesuto, Xhosa, Zulu, and Yoruba, began in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Euro-Christian missionary schools and feature allegorical novels inspired by Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. But the tension between Euro-Christianity and African...