The Cambridge Companion to African American Women's Literature
The Cambridge Companion to African American Women's Literature

Author: Angelyn Mitchell

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2009-04-30

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0521858887

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The Cambridge Companion to African American Women's Literature covers a period dating back to the eighteenth century. These specially commissioned essays highlight the artistry, complexity and diversity of a literary tradition that ranges from Lucy Terry to Toni Morrison. A wide range of topics are addressed, from the Harlem Renaissance to the Black Arts Movement, and from the performing arts to popular fiction. Together, the essays provide an invaluable guide to a rich, complex tradition of women writers in conversation with each other as they critique American society and influence American letters. Accessible and vibrant, with the needs of undergraduate students in mind, this Companion will be of great interest to anybody who wishes to gain a deeper understanding of this important and vital area of American literature.

The Cambridge Companion to the African Novel
The Cambridge Companion to the African Novel

Author: F. Abiola Irele

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2009-07-23

Total Pages: 309

ISBN-13: 1139827707

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Africa's strong tradition of storytelling has long been an expression of an oral narrative culture. African writers such as Amos Tutuola, Naguib Mahfouz, Wole Soyinka and J. M. Coetzee have adapted these older forms to develop and enhance the genre of the novel, in a shift from the oral mode to print. Comprehensive in scope, these new essays cover the fiction in the European languages from North Africa and Africa south of the Sahara, as well as in Arabic. They highlight the themes and styles of the African novel through an examination of the works that have either attained canonical status - an entire chapter is devoted to the work of Chinua Achebe - or can be expected to do so. Including a guide to further reading and a chronology, this is the ideal starting-point for students of African and world literatures.

The Cambridge Companion to Ralph Ellison
The Cambridge Companion to Ralph Ellison

Author: Ross Posnock

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2005-05-05

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 1139827103

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Ralph Ellison's classic 1952 novel Invisible Man is one of the most important and controversial novels in the American canon and remains widely read and studied. This Companion provides an introduction to this influential and significant novelist and critic and to his masterpiece. It features essays by leading scholars, a chronology and a guide to further reading. The essays reveal alternative dimensions of Ellison's art radiating out from Invisible Man into other domains - technology, political theory, law, photography, music, religion - and recover the compelling urgency and relevance of Ellison's political and artistic vision. Since Ellison's death his published oeuvre has been expanded by several major volumes - his collected essays, the fragment of a novel, Juneteenth (1999), letters and short stories - examined here in the context of his life and work. Students and scholars of Ellison and of American and African-American literature will find this an invaluable and accessible guide.

The Cambridge Companion to the African American Slave Narrative
The Cambridge Companion to the African American Slave Narrative

Author: Audrey Fisch

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2007-05-31

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 1139827596

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The slave narrative has become a crucial genre within African American literary studies and an invaluable record of the experience and history of slavery in the United States. This Companion examines the slave narrative's relation to British and American abolitionism, Anglo-American literary traditions such as autobiography and sentimental literature, and the larger African American literary tradition. Special attention is paid to leading exponents of the genre such as Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs, as well as many other, less well known examples. Further essays explore the rediscovery of the slave narrative and its subsequent critical reception, as well as the uses to which the genre is put by modern authors such as Toni Morrison. With its chronology and guide to further reading, the Companion provides both an easy entry point for students new to the subject and comprehensive coverage and original insights for scholars in the field.