Mapping the Terrain: Introduction (African Children's Literature) (Essay‪)‬

The collection of papers in this special edition of JACYL has its origins in the first conference on the Research and Study of Children's Literature in Africa, held in June 2002, in Gaberone, Botswana. At this conference, the African Research Society for Children's Literature, with links to the International Research Society for Children's Literature [IRSCL], was formally founded. Key themes of the conference included colonialism and post-colonialism in children's literature in Africa, the relationship between oral and written literature, writing in indigenous languages, African folkloric tales and their relation to the contemporary child, canonicity and the cultural relevance of children's literature, the transnational portability of African stories and African children as storytellers. There were also special report sessions on the status of research of children's literature in Africa, an important issue which this volume, through the publication of serious academic papers on children's literature in Africa, hopes to address. The study of children's literature in Africa has attracted almost no systematic research, nor is it considered a field worthy of intensive study in major African universities. It can best be described as an emerging field of study, with pockets of interest from scholars dispersed across the continent. The eleven papers in this volume include nine which were originally presented at the 2002 Gaberone conference, and two papers which were subsequently commissioned by the editors. Whilst this special edition does not in any way claim to be 'representative' of scholarship in the area of children's literature in Africa, it does bring together in a single volume the work of researchers from Kenya, Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe. It also includes a joint research paper involving Zimbabwean and American researchers. Unfortunately there is no existing journal on the continent which specializes in the study of children's literature and by publishing these papers in JACYL, we hope to reach a larger, more global audience. Such is the marginalized status of children's literature on the continent, and the colonial nature of our relationships in Africa to the wider world.