This chapter explores the varied facets through which conceptions of materialism manifest across the larger ecologies of literary production bundled under the rubric “African literature.” It deliberately treats both of these terms – materialism and literature – in their broadest senses. The chapter begins with a brief consideration of the various manifestations of materialism which have emerged in studies of African literature, reading materialism variously as critique (in its Marxist/socialist guise), aesthetic (what Zimblar and Etherington call the “materials” of world literature), and context (material worlds and worldings). The chapter then expands on these ideas through a set of literary-focused readings which draw on anglophone, francophone, and other African literatures, largely emphasizing the global circulations of the novel form from 1960 to the present day. This chapter finally concludes by looking at materialism through the twinned concepts of circulation and mediation, exploring the ways in which the material structures which allow a literature to “emerge,” in market terms, simultaneously impact the constitution of the African literary text and its publics.