Contributors to this volume ask what are the new directions of African literature? What should be the major concerns of writers, critics and teachers in the twenty-first century? What are the accomplishments and legacies? What gaps remain to be filled, and what challenges are there to be addressed by publishers and the book industry? What are the implications for pedagogy in the new technological era? ERNEST EMENYONU is Professor of the Department of Africana Studies University of Michigan-Flint. North America: Africa World Press; Nigeria: HEBN
This book offers a comprehensive and authoritative analytical review of the burgeoning area of China-Africa studies. The contributors draw on various disciplinary perspectives, posing not just methodological and theoretical questions about China-Africa and arguments for repositioning this as Africa-China but also raising wider issues, such as higher education in Africa or the global impact of China on social science.
This reference book surveys the richness of postcolonial African literature. The volume begins with an introductory essay on postcolonial criticism and African writing, then presents alphabetically arranged profiles of some 60 writers, including Chinua Achebe, Nadine Gordimer, Bessie Head, Doris Lessing, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Tahbar Ben Jelloun, among others. Each entry includes a brief biography, a discussion of major works and themes that appear in the author's writings, an overview of the critical response to the author's work, and a bibliography of primary and secondary sources. These profiles are written by expert contributors and reflect many different perspectives. The volume concludes with a selected general bibliography of the most important critical works on postcolonial African literature.
This book examines the complexities of women’s lives in Africa and the transnational spaces of Europe and North America through the literary works of key African women writers. Using a postcolonial analytical framework, the book highlights the commonalities of African women’s identities and experiences across national, ethnic, linguistic, and religious boundaries in Africa and in western settings. It collates the multi-regional narratives of key African women writers who convey how women’s lives are shaped by social, economic, and political factors at home and abroad. It also illustrates the intersection of ethnicity, class, and gender that flows through all the texts examined. Unlike existing works that explore African women’s fiction, this book uncovers the transformation from postcolonial themes of nationhood to global modalities of post-independence writing through the lens of gender. The book engages with feminist expression through broad themes including religion, war and ethnic conflict, women’s status in society, tradition and modernity and local and global tensions. A unique approach to literary criticism of Anglophone African women’s writing, this book will be of interest to scholars and students in the field of African Literature, African Studies, Women’s Literature, Postcolonial Literature, Cultural and Ethnic Studies and Migration and Diaspora Studies.
Brings together experiences of teachers of African literature from around the world in the context of technological change. Focuses on theoretical and pedagogical approaches to the teaching of African Literature on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond. The publication of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart in 1958 drew universal attention not only to contemporary African creative imagination, but also established the art of the modern African novel. In 1986, Wole Soyinka became the first African to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, and opened the 'gate' for other African writers. By the close of the 20th century, African Literature had gained world-wide acceptance and legitimacy in the academy and featured on the literature curriculum of schools and colleges across the globe. This specialissue of African Literature Today, examines the diverse experiences of teachers of African Literature across regional, racial, cultural and national boundaries. It explores such issues as student responses, productive pedagogical innovations, the impact of modern technology, case studies of online teaching, teaching Criticism of African Literature, and teaching African Literature in an age of multiculturalism. It is intended as an invaluable teacher's handbook and essential student companion for the effective study of African Literature. Ernest Emenyonu is Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Michigan-Flint, USA; the editorial board is composed of scholars from US, UK and African universities Nigeria: HEBN
This handbook provides a critical overview of literature dealing with groups of people or regions that suffer marginalization within Africa. The contributors examine a multiplicity of minority discourses expressed in African literature, including those who are culturally, socially, politically, religiously, economically, and sexually marginalized in literary and artistic creations. Chapters and sections of the book are structured to identify major areas of minority articulation of their condition and strategies deployed against the repression, persecution, oppression, suppression, domination, and tyranny of the majority or dominant group. Bringing together diverse perspectives to give a holistic representation of the African reality, this handbook is an important read for scholars and students of comparative and postcolonial literature and African studies.
Since the second half of the twentieth century, no single phenomenon has marred the image and development of Africa more than senseless fratricidal wars which rapidly followed the political independence of nations. This issue of African Literature Today is devoted to studies of how African writers, as historical witnesses, have handled the recreation of war as a cataclysmic phenomenon in various locations on the continent. The contributors explore the subject from a variety of perspectives: panoramic, regional, national and through comparative studies. War has enriched contemporary African literature, but at what price to human lives, peace and the environment? ERNEST EMENYONU is Professor of the Department of Africana Studies University of Michigan-Flint. The contributors include: CHIMALUM NWANKWO, CHRISTINE MATZKE, CLEMENT A. OKAFOR, INIBONG I. UKO, OIKE MACHIKO, SOPHIE OGWUDE, MAURICE TAONEZVI VAMBE, ZOE NORRIDGE and ISIDORE DIALA. Nigeria: HEBN
Gender Issues in African Literature examines the ways in which some protagonists of African fictions are made to counter and challenge intertwined Western discourses on gender, employment, sexuality, and health. Here the conflict between Tradition and Modernity is argues from the favourite premise of male supremacist ideology showing how women have 'unlearned' these false concepts to build a sustained feminist movement and (re)learn the value of sisterhood. There is a bold attempt to reread Achebe as a consistent in urging women to fight the seemingly oppressive structures that have traditionally discriminated against them, and to disregard their diversity and embrace their unity. A chapter of Feminist Re-writing disagrees with the attempt to equate theory with political activism and presents Feminist literature as more than a verbal assertion that points to Feminist aesthetics and politics. The use of the trauma theory and testimony literature to explore traumatisation of female characters and its impact for Zimbabwean civil society is a useful addition to these gender studies in African literature.
