African American Caribbean Literature Multiple Choice Questions
1. He wrote an essay called “Conrad’s Darkness” where he praises the earlier writer for offering him a vision of the world’s “half-made societies’. Identify the writer.
A. Chinua Achebe
B. V.S. Naipaul
C. Salman Rushdie
D. Ngugi wa Thiongo
Answer: B.
2. The title Things Fall Apart is drawn from a poem by :
A. W. B. Yeats
B. Ted Hughes
C. W. H. Auden
D. Robert Lowell
Answer: A.
3. ‘Topsy’ appears in :
A. Uncle Tom’s Cabin
B. History of the United States
C. Walden
D. Tom Sawyer
Answer: A.
4. Which of the following writers did NOT receive the Nobel Prize for Literature ?
A. Wole Soyinka
B. Chinua Achebe
C. J. M. Coetzee
D. Nadine Gordimer
Answer: B.
5. In Derek Walcott’s Dream on Monkey Mountain, Makak’s vision of freedom for his people is
A. through money
B. through violence
C. through black power
D. through a decolonization of the mind
Answer: D.
6. Match the following authors with their works from the given below :
(Authors)
i. Buchi Emecheta
ii. Ama Ata Aidoo
iii. Nadine Gordimer
iv. Nqugi Wa Thiongo
(Works)
1. Burger’s Daughter
2. Joy of Motherhood
3. Devil on the Cross
4. Our Sister Killjoy
Find the correct combination according to the code :
Codes :
i ii ii i iv
A. 1 2 3 4
B. 2 4 1 3
C. 3 1 4 2
D. 4 3 2 1
Answer: B.
7. Match the following authors with their plays from the lists given below :
(Authors)
i. Langston Hughes
ii. Lorraine Hansberry
iii. Ed Bullins
iv. Amiri Baraka
(Plays)
1. Dutchman
2. Clara’s Ole Man
3. Don’t You want to be Free
4. Raisin in the Sun
Find the correct combination according to the code :
Codes :
i i i iii iv
A. 3 4 2 1
B. 1 2 3 4
C. 2 1 4 3
D. 4 3 1 2
Answer: A.
8. Playing in the Dark by Toni Morrison is a series of reflections on:
A. Jazz music
B. Disability sports
C. Whiteness and the literary imagination
D. Black American folklore
Answer: C.
9. The author of Black Skin, White Masks is
A. Ngugi wa Thiong’o
B. Frantz Fanon
C. Richard Wright
D. Martin Luther King (Jr.)
Answer: B.
10. The Muse of History is a classic postcolonial essay by :
A. Ngugi wa Thiongo
B. Chinua Achebe
C. Wilson Harris
D. Derek Walcott
Answer: D.
11. In which of the following works does the narrator proclaim, “either I’m nobody, or I’m the nation” ?
A. George Lamming’s In the Castle of My Skin
B. Derek Walcott’s “The Schooner Flight”
C. Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl”
D. Kamau Braithwaite’s “Nation Language”
Answer: B.
12. In the remarkably crucial courtroom scene of Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie is called upon to speak. Whose voice do we hear in the narrative ?
A. Tea Cake’s voice
B. Janie’s first-person voice
C. Pheoby’s voice
D. The omniscient third-person voice
Answer: D.
13. Which of the following novels deals with the Biafran War ?
A. July’s People
B. Waiting for the Barbarians
C. Half of a Yellow Sun
D. Arrow of God
Answer: C.
14. Nuruddin Farah’s Maps tells the story of __________
A. Abida
B. Ahu
C. Askar
D. Andy
Answer: C.
15. Which of the following statements is NOT TRUE regarding the poems of Derek Walcott ?
A. His poem ‘Goats and Monkeys’ has an epigraph from Shakespeare’s Othello
B. In ‘The Sadhu of Couva’ Walcott refers to Diwali, Hanuman and the Ramayana
C. Walcott has written a poem entitled ‘Jean Rhys’
D. In ‘A Far Cry From Africa’ Walcott depicts his divided loyalties in the context of the Changuna Uprising
Answer: D.
16. Who among the following African novelists was a student of philosophy and literature in India?
A. Nuruddin Farah
B. Ben Okri
C. Helon Habila
D. Benjamin Kwakye
Answer: A.
17. Ngugi wa Thiongo changed the medium of his writing from English to …………..
A. Swahili
B. Yoruba
C. Xhosa
D. Gikuyu
Answer: D.
18. Which of the following novels by Nuruddin Farah deals with foreign aid?
A. Maps
B. Gifts
C. Secrets
D. Links
Answer: B.
19. In J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace David Lurie is working on an opera on the life of one of the Romantic poets. Who is the poet ?
A. Blake
B. Shelley
C. Byron
D. Coleridge
Answer: C.
20. Who of the following writers recreates the life of the Yoruba/Ibo community ?
A. Derek Walcott
B. Wole Soyinka
C. Chinna Achebe
D. Okot
Answer: B.
21. Among Derek Walcott’s plays, which one is an exploration of colonial relationships through the Robinson Crusoe story ?
A. Pantomime
B. Dream on Monkey Mountain
C. Ti-Jean and His Brothers
D. The Charlatan
Answer: A.
22. Chimamanda Adichie’s last novel, Americanah (2013) centres on the romantic and existential struggles of a young Nigerian woman studying in the United States and finding success as a blogger. What is her blogging about ?
A. poverty
B. development
C. race
D. religion
Answer: C.
23. The plot of this Coetzee novel unravels the narrative of a poor man of colour trying to survive in a civil-war situation, never taking sides. Identify the novel.
A. Disgrace
B. Age of Iron
C. Waiting for the Barbarians
D. Life and Times of Michael K.
Answer: D.
24. July’s People is a novel by :
A. Margaret Atwood
B. V. S. Naipul
C. Wole Soyinka
D. Nadine Gordimer
Answer: D.
25. A Dance of the Forest is written by :
A. Margaret Atwood
B. Nadine Gordimer
C. Chinua Achebe
D. Wole Soyinka
Answer: D.
26. Sethe is a character in
A. The Colour Purple
B. The Women of Brewster Place
C. Beloved
D. Lucy
Answer: C.
27. Which of the following plays is not written by Wole Soyinka ?
A. The Lion and the Jewel
B. The Dance of the Forests
C. Master Harold and the Boys
D. Kongi’s Harvest
Answer: C.
28. Ikemefuna is a character in the novel
A. When Rain Clouds Gather
B. The Mimic Men
C. Things Fall Apart
D. The Interpreters
Answer: C.
29. Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea is set in
A. The Congo region
B. The Niger Delta
C. The Caribbean
D. The African Savannah
Answer: C.
30. Which of the following novels by V.S. Naipaul is set in Africa and carries echoes of Joseph Conrad ?
A. The Mystic Masseur
B. A Bend in the River
C. A House for Mr. Biswas
D. The Mimic Men
Answer: B.
31. Which is the correct sequence of the novels of V.S. Naipaul?
A. The Mystic Masseur–Miguel Street–The Suffrage of Elvira – A House for Mr. Biswas.
B. Miguel Street – The Mystic Masseur – A House for Mr.Biswas – The Suffrage of Elvira.
C. The Suffrage of Elvira – Miguel Street – The Mystic Masseur – A House for Mr. Biswas.
D. The Mystic Masseur – The Suffrage of Elvira, Miguel Street – A House for Mr. Biswas.
Answer: D.
32. The novel has a scene where African American students are made to compete and fight with each other as they rush for the gold coins tossed on an electric blanket. Identify the novel.
A. Richard Wright: Native Son
B. James Baldwin: Another Country
C. Ralph Ellison: Invisible Man
D. Toni Morrison: Bluest Eye
Answer: C.
33. Which of the following arrangements is in the correct chronological sequence?
A. Native Son by Richard Wright – Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison – Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neil Hurston – Another Country by James Baldwin
B. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neil Hurston – Native Son by Richard Wright – Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison – Another Country by James Baldwin
C. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison – Native Son by Richard Wright – Another Country by James Baldwin – Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neil Hurston
D. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neil Hurston – Another Country by James Baldwin – Native Son by Richard Wright – Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Answer: B.
34. Which of the following characters is killed in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart in conformity with an African tribal custom?
A. Okonkwo
B. Obierika
C. Ikemefuna
D. Nwoye
Answer: C.
35. Arrange the following works in the order in which they appear. Identify the correct code:
I. No Longer at Ease
II. Things Fall apart
III. A Man of the People
IV. Arrow of God
The correct combination according to the code is:
Code:
A. III, IV, II, I
B. IV, III, I, II
C. II, I, IV, III
D. I, II, III, IV
Answer: C.
36. Which of the following novels is NOT written by Jean Rhys ?
A. After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie
B. Good Morning, Midnight
C. The Quiet American
D. Wide Sargasso Sea
Answer: C.
37. Which of the following African writers won the Nobel Prize for Literature ?
A. Chinua Achebe
B. Nadine Gordimer
C. Ngugi wa Thiong’o
D. Bessie Head
Answer: B.
38. An important poet and playwright who in the 1960s led the Black Arts Movement, in the spirit of negritude, posited a ‘Black Aesthetic’ that expressed a pan-African, organic and whole sensibility.
A. Henry Louis Gates Jr.
B. Amiri Baraka
C. Ishmael Reed
D. Bell Hooks
Answer: B.
39. Match List – I with List – II according to the code given below :
List – I (Authors)
i. V.S. Naipaul
ii. Jean Rhys
iii. Marina Warners
iv. J.M. Coetzee
List – II (Books)
1. Foe
2. Indigo or Mapping the Waters
3. Wide Sargasso Sea
4. Mimic Men
Codes :
i ii iii iv
A. 4 2 3 1
B. 4 1 2 3
C. 4 3 2 1
D. 1 3 4 2
Answer: C.
40. Which of the following is NOT written by Wole Soyinka?
A. Home and Exile
B. Kongi’s Harvest
C. The interpreters
D. The Swamp Dwellers
Answer: A.
41. Divided into three sections this ground-breaking work published in 1953 uses as the frame of the spiritual and moral awakening of a fourteen-year-old during a Saturday night service in a Harlem church. Identify the work.
A. Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Are Watching God
B. James Baldwin’s Go Tell it on the Mountain
C. Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon
D. Richard Wright’s Native Son
Answer: B.
42. Which of the following is the most accurate statement by W.E.B. Du Bois’s famous articulation of the ‘twoness’ of black Americans?
A. “it is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this scene of always lokking at one’s self through the eyes of others.”
B. “This sense of always looking at one’s self, a peculiar sensation through the eyes is double consciousness.”
C. “Through the eyes of others, this sense of always looking at one’s self, we acquire the double-consciousness.”
D. “this double consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, is a peculiar sensation.”
Answer: A.
43. Harriet B. Stowe had wanted to write a work based on the life of an Afro-American writer which was later published as:
A. Uncle Tom’s Cabin
B. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
C. Cry, The Beloved Country
D. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Answer: B.
44. Which of the following is NOT written by Buchi Emecheta?
A. The Joys of Motherhood
B. Second-Class citizen
C. A Question of Power
D. Kehinde
Answer: C.
45. What does ‘Harlem Renaissance’ refer to?
A. A scientific and rational ethos, including freedom from superstition, in 18th century Europe
B. The flourishing of African American literature in the 19205 and 19305
C. A church system, overseen by a governing hierarchy of four courts, championed by the English Puritans
D. The revelation of Christ to the Gentiles in the persons of the Magi
Answer: B.
46. Who is the central character of Derek Walcott’s Dream on the Monkey Mountain ?
A. Diana Guinness, one of the Mitford Sisters
B. Jordan, a fantasist
C. Makak, a charcoal burner
D. Eva Smith, a seamstress
Answer: C.
47. In Wide Sargasso Sea what is the name of Rochester’s Creole wife-to-be?
A. Bertha
B. Martha
C. Jane
D. Barbara
Answer: A.
48. Purple Hisbiscus is a work by
A. Cyprian Ekwensi
B. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
C. Seffi Atta
D. Chukwuemeka Ike
Answer: B.
49. Which two novels of Buchi Emecheta provide a fictionalized portrait of poor, young Nigerian women struggling to bring up their children in London?
I. The Slave Girl
II. The Joys of Motherhood
III. Second Class Citizen
IV. In the Ditch
The right combination according to the code is
A. I and II
B. II and III
C. III and IV
D. I and IV
Answer: C.
50. Which novel of Toni Morrison tells the wrenching story of a protagonist who murders her child rather than to allow him/her to live as a slave?
A. Sula
B. Tar Baby
C. Song of Solomon
D. Beloved
Answer: D.
51. Which two works of JM Coetzee won Booker Prize on two occasions ?
I. In the Heart of the Country
II. Life and Times of Michael K.
III. Disgrace
IV. Waiting for the Barbarians
The right combination according to the code is :
A. II and III
B. II and IV
C. III and IV
D. I and III
Answer: A.
52. Which of the following novels does not belong to Nuruddin’s Farah’s Blood In the Sun Trilogy ?
A. Maps
B. Knots
C. Gifts
D. Secrets
Answer: B.
53. Who, among the following raises the following painful question of longing and belonging ?
“Where shall I turn, divided to the vein ?
i who have cursed
The drunken officer of British rule, how choose
Between this Africa and the English tongue I love?”
A. Derek Walcott
B. Louise Bennett
C. Kamau Brathwaite
D. Wole Soyinka
Answer: A.
54. This novel is dedicated. “To the railroad of bones” and has as its epigraph the line,
“I am the woman they give dead women’s clothes to” from Christine Gelineau’s “Inheritance”
Identify the novel
A. African Psycho by Alain Mabanckou
B. The Chibok Girls by Helon Habila
C. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
D. The Book of Night Women by Marlon James
Answer: D.
55. Which novel of Kazuo Ishiguro is narrated by a Japanese widow living in England and draws on the destruction and rehabilitation of Nagasaki ?
A. An Artist of the Floating World
B. The Unconsoled
C. A Pale View of Hills
D. When We Were Orphans
Answer: C.
56. Early African-American texts like slave narratives were often described as told to narratives as their ‘authors’ dictated their experiences. The persons who noted down these experiences are
A. Amanuenses
B. Abolitionists
C. Translators
D. Slave-drives
Answer: A.
57. Which of the following poems is quoted as the epigraph to A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry?
A. “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”
B. “Harlem (A Dream Deferred)”
C. “The Big Sea”
D. “I, too, Sing America”
Answer: B.
58. Which two of the following novels deal with the theme of apartheid?
a) Purple Hibiscus
b) July’s People
c) Cry, The Beloved Country
d) The Mimic Men
Choose the correct option
A. A. and C.
B. B. and D.
C. B. and C.
D. A. and D.
Answer: C.