Novels of Botswana in English, 1930-2006

Novels of Botswana in English, 1930-2006

Author: S. Lederer

Publisher: African Books Collective

Published: 2014-06-16

Total Pages: 197

ISBN-13: 1940729165

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Mary Lederer provides a valuable critical/historical survey of the genesis and development of the English novel in Botswana. This book comes as a timely correction of the notion that Botswana has no sustained fiction written in English, thus filling a gap that has existed for a long time in the literature of that country.


Legacies of Departed African Women Writers

Legacies of Departed African Women Writers

Author: Helen O. Chukwuma

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2022-08-29

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 1666914665

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Legacies of Departed African Women Writers: Matrix of Creativity and Power proffers varied perspectives of the invaluable contributions of ten deceased African writers from all across Africa who have cleared the path to a vibrant African feminist arena. The dynamics of change gleaned from both their textual and contextual concerns unarguably set the pace for contemporary African women writers who have striven to follow in the footsteps of their literary mothers as well as their oral foremothers. This book, edited by Helen Chukwuma and Chioma Carol Opara, shows the collective testament of ample creativity and power generated by these departed heroes: Flora Nwapa, Mariama Ba, Grace Ogot, Zulu Sofola, Bessie Head, Buchi Emecheta, Nawal El Saadawi, Assia Djebar, Yvonne Vera, and Nadine Gordimer. These chapters revolve around the positive impact of the celebrated writers on creative writing, theoretical formulations, and socio-cultural change. The contributors argue that these corpuses of works have illuminated creativity rooted in power, vision, and freedom.


Bessie Head and the Trauma of Exile

Bessie Head and the Trauma of Exile

Author: Joshua Agbo

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-06-17

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 1000398633

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book investigates themes of exile and oppression in Southern Africa across Bessie Head’s novels and short fiction. An exile herself, arriving in Botswana as a South African refugee, Bessie Head’s fiction serves as an important example of African exile literature. This book argues that Head’s characters are driven to exile as a result of their socio- political ambivalence while still in South Africa, and that this sense of discomfort follows them to their new lives. Investigating themes of trauma and identity politics across colonial and post- colonial contexts, this book also addresses the important theme of black- on- black prejudice and hostility which is often overlooked in studies of Head’s work. Covering Head’s shorter fiction as well as her major novels When Rain Clouds Gather (1969), Maru (1971), A Question of Power (1973), Serowe: Village of the Rain Wind (1981), and A Bewitched Crossroads: An African Saga (1984), this book will be of interest to researchers of African literature and postcolonial history.


In Conversation with Bessie Head

In Conversation with Bessie Head

Author: Mary S. Lederer

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2020-12-24

Total Pages: 169

ISBN-13: 1501371436

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In Conversation with Bessie Head shows how reading the novels and letters of Botswana's most influential writer, Bessie Head, fosters an ongoing conversation between reader and writer and is in fact a very personal undertaking. Each chapter tackles two parallel threads, the first regarding Mary S. Lederer's own history of reading Head-from her first purchase of Maru, through completing a Ph.D. on Head's trilogy, through living in Botswana and connecting with various aspects of Head's life, to examining how reading Head has affected her own development as a human being. This history then ties each chapter into discussion of how Head develops her own vision of the “brotherhood of man.” Alongside critically informed discussion, Head's vision is examined through the prism of specific questions. Why is madness not a useful concept for understanding Head's ideas? Why did Head say she was not a feminist, and what is the significance of “male” and “female” in her novels? What is the relationship between individual, race, and community? How can the nature of God be a clear expression of love but also an indistinct force for both good and evil? Head's novels present opportunities for personal growth, and through these “conversations” with her, we become different readers.


Global Healing

Global Healing

Author: Karen Laura Thornber

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2020-03-02

Total Pages: 709

ISBN-13: 9004420185

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Read an interview with Karen Thornber. In Global Healing: Literature, Advocacy, Care, Karen Laura Thornber analyzes how narratives from diverse communities globally engage with a broad variety of diseases and other serious health conditions and advocate for empathic, compassionate, and respectful care that facilitates healing and enables wellbeing. The three parts of this book discuss writings from Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Oceania that implore societies to shatter the devastating social stigmas which prevent billions from accessing effective care; to increase the availability of quality person-focused healthcare; and to prioritize partnerships that facilitate healing and enable wellbeing for both patients and loved ones. Thornber’s Global Healing remaps the contours of comparative literature, world literature, the medical humanities, and the health humanities. Watch a video interview with Thornber by the Mahindra Humanities Center, part of their conversations on Covid-19. Read an interview with Thornber on Brill's Humanities Matter blog.


Gypsies and the British Imagination, 1807-1930

Gypsies and the British Imagination, 1807-1930

Author: Deborah Epstein Nord

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 0231137044

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Deborah Epstein Nord traces the nearly ubiquitous British preoccupation with Gypsies in imaginative works by John Clare, Walter Scott, William Wordsworth, George Eliot, Arthur Conan Doyle, and D. H. Lawrence. She also exhumes lesser-known literary, ethnographic, and historical texts, exploring the fascinating histories of the nomadic writer George Borrow, the Gypsy Lore Society, Dora Yates, and other rarely examined figures and institutions. These textual representations are characterized by a tension between Gypsies as an alien, often despised "race" and the psychic or aesthetic desire to dissolve the boundary between English and Gypsy worlds. Nord suggests that, by the beginning of the twentieth century, romantic identification with Gypsies hardened into caricature and served to obscure the realities of Gypsy life and history. This phenomenon is reflected most famously in The Virgin and the Gipsy, in which D. H. Lawrence both exploits and criticizes the myth of Gypsies' unfettered sensuality, closeness to nature, and opposition to the oppressive strictures of modern life.


Marriage, a History

Marriage, a History

Author: Stephanie Coontz

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2006-02-28

Total Pages: 449

ISBN-13: 1101118253

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Just when the clamor over "traditional" marriage couldn’t get any louder, along comes this groundbreaking book to ask, "What tradition?" In Marriage, a History, historian and marriage expert Stephanie Coontz takes readers from the marital intrigues of ancient Babylon to the torments of Victorian lovers to demonstrate how recent the idea of marrying for love is—and how absurd it would have seemed to most of our ancestors. It was when marriage moved into the emotional sphere in the nineteenth century, she argues, that it suffered as an institution just as it began to thrive as a personal relationship. This enlightening and hugely entertaining book brings intelligence, perspective, and wit to today’s marital debate.