African literature has been a global literature for several millennia. Some of the most important writers and thinkers of the classical era and late antiquity were Africans (Augustine, for instance). We'll start with those early writers, then move on to texts by the medieval inventor of sociology, Ibn Khaldun; the epic of the medieval Mali empire, Sundiata; a medieval Ethiopian saint's life; colonial writing about Africa by Europeans, and colonial-era literature by African writers; the work of Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Wole Soyinka and others that confront the legacy of colonialism; and recent Africanfuturist art, film, and literature.