This volume provides scholars and students with a birds-eye view of the stories African literature has told about itself. It elaborates on Africa's contributions to an evolving, transnational literary vocabulary and though its organization around key terms rather than specific periods or national canons, Intellectual Traditions of African Literature also facilitates movement between and across African traditions: its framework is intrinsically comparative. As befits a project of this scale and versatility, its contributors are drawn from across professional ranks, areas of geographical and subfield expertise, and academies of origin. By contextualizing African literature within a larger set of literary terms and movements, it demonstrates that African literature is intrinsically worldly and transnational, even at points of local historical engagement.