Equatoguinean literature in Spanish

For example, M'bare N'gom, a professor at Morgan State University, searched 30 anthologies of literature in Spanish published between 1979 and 1991 and did not find a single reference to Equatoguinean writers.

This began to change in the late 1990s with the publication of a monograph in the journal Afro-Hispanic Review, and with the conferences Spain in Africa and Latin America: The Other Face of Literary Hispanism at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri in May 1999 and Primer Encuentro de Escritores africanos en Lengua Española ("First Encounter with African Writers in the Spanish Language") in Murcia, Spain in November 2000.

The central theme of this literature is a savage, wild Africa; the protagonists are idealized white characters with a negative, paternalistic vision of the Africans, who are portrayed as inferior beings.

However, in 1947 a new section was added in which writers recorded local stories and myths to "preserve and disseminate" them (their ultimate purpose was to become better acquainted with the Equatoguinean peoples in order to "civilize" them, or assimilate them into white culture).

Among these writers are Esteban Bualo, Andrés IKuga Ebombebombe, and Constantino Ocha'a Mve Bengobesama; they maintained a strong ethnographic component in their writing, but they also set the stage for a new native literature.

It is written from the point of view of the protagonist, a white Protestant missionary; on occasion, he is used by the author to contrast European civilization with the savagery of African customs, which are explained in detail.

In 1962, the second Equatoguinean novel, Una lanza por el Boabí ("A Spear for the Boabi"), by Daniel Jones Mathama (San Carlos, 1913?-?

It may also be classified as part of the "literature of consent," since Boabi is the perfect example of a savage who is civilized by contact with the colonizers: "it is an inescapable duty to proclaim far and wide the great work that Spain is doing on that island."

Between 1962 and 1968, the year of Equatorial Guinea's independence, no important works were published; however, some authors continued to edit stories, legends, and ethnographies in various journals: Marcelo Asistencia Ndongo Mba, Constantino Ochaá, Ángel Nguema, Rafael María Nzé, and Francisco Obiang.

These small shoots of a literary tradition were uprooted when, only months after being democratically elected, Francisco Macías Nguema installed a dictatorship, termed "Afro-fascist" by the historian Max Liniger-Goumaz.

Writers from the diaspora also wrote narratives of exile: for example, El sueño (The Dream) and La travesía (The Crossing) by Donato Ndongo-Bidyogo (Niefang, Río Muni, 1950–), La última carta del Padre Fulgencio Abad, C. M. F. (The Last Letter of Father Fulgencio Abad, C. M. F.) by Maplal Loboch (1912–1976), and Bea by Francisco Zamora Loboch (Santa Isabel, 1947–).

Also from this time period are O Boriba (The exile) (1982) and Susurros y pensamientos comentados: Desde mi vidriera (Comments on Whispers and Thoughts: From my window) (1983), both by Juan Balboa Boneke.

Some notable narrative works that it has published include El amigo fiel (The Faithful Friend) (1987) by Ana Lourdes Sohora, Afén, la cabrita reina (Afén, the Little Goat Queen) (1989) and La última lección del venerable Emaga Ela (The Last Lesson of the Venerable Emaga Ela) (1991) by Antimo Esono Ndongo, and Boote-Chiba (1990) by Pedro Cristino Bueriberi.

The authors of this second stage are characterized by their use of themes that relate to their lives in one way or another, which are often reinterpreted to depict the reality of Equatorial Guinea in symbolic form.

The plot is centered on Nnanga, a Bantu woman, but it is told from the point of view of a man, Ekomo – a maneuver that allows the author more freedom to criticize the patriarchal world of postcolonial Africa.

Voces de espumas (Voices from the surf) (1987), by Ciriaco Bokesa, was the first book of poetry written on Guinean land by an Equatoguinean writer.