Since the 1970s, there has been a movement in African literary studies toward the recognition of national literatures in newly independent African states, such as Cameroon, Senegal, and Benin. But while in some of these national literatures there has undoubtedly emerged a sense of corporate identity, often marked by clear thematic and formal progressions, it remains an incontrovertible fact that the European languages in which these literatures are expressed have only an official acceptance: they are neither indigenous to the cultures on which they have been imposed, nor are they national in any real sense of the word. This must limit the claims of any of these literatures to national significance, however abundant the corpus or coherent the internal configurations.