Writers, Writing on Conflict and Wars in Africa
Writers, Writing on Conflict and Wars in Africa

Author: Okey Ndibe

Publisher: Adonis & Abbey Publishers Ltd

Published: 2009-07-30

Total Pages: 191

ISBN-13: 1912234718

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Many African countries are caught up in perennial or recurrent political conflicts that often culminate in devastating wars. These flaring conflicts and wars create harrowing economic hardships, dire refugee problems, and sustain a sense of despair in such countries. By their nature, these conflicts and wars affect writers in profound and sometimes paradoxical ways. On the one hand, literature-whether fiction, poetry, drama, or even memoirs-is animated by conflict. On the other hand, the sense of dislocation as well as the humanitarian crises unleashed by wars and other kinds of conflicts also constitute grave impediments to artistic exploration and literary expression. Writers and artists are frequently in the frontline of resistance to the kinds of injustices and abuses that precipitate wars and conflicts. Consequently, they are often detained, exiled, and even killed either by agents of state terror or by one faction or another in the tussle for state control. Writers, Writing Conflicts and Wars in Africa is a collection of testimonies by various writers and scholars who have experienced, or explored, the continent's conflicts and woes, including how the disruptions shape artistic and literary production. The book is divided into two broad categories: in one, several writers speak directly, and with rich anecdotal details about the impact wars and conflicts have had in the formation of their experience and work; in the second, a number of scholars articulate how particular writers have assimilated the horrors of wars and conflicts in their literary creations. The result is an invaluable harvest of reflections and perspectives that open the window into an essential, but until now sadly unexplored, facet of the cultural and political experience of African writers. The broad scope of this collection-covering Darfur, the Congolese crisis, Biafra, Zimbabwe, South Africa, among others-is complemented by a certain buoyancy of spirit that runs through most of the essays and anecdotes.

War and Conflict in Africa
War and Conflict in Africa

Author: Paul D. Williams

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2016-06-23

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 1509509089

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After the Cold War, Africa earned the dubious distinction of being the world's most bloody continent. But how can we explain this proliferation of armed conflicts? What caused them and what were their main characteristics? And what did the world's governments do to stop them? In this fully revised and updated second edition of his popular text, Paul Williams offers an in-depth and wide-ranging assessment of more than six hundred armed conflicts which took place in Africa from 1990 to the present day - from the continental catastrophe in the Great Lakes region to the sprawling conflicts across the Sahel and the web of wars in the Horn of Africa. Taking a broad comparative approach to examine the political contexts in which these wars occurred, he explores the major patterns of organized violence, the key ingredients that provoked them and the major international responses undertaken to deliver lasting peace. Part I, Contexts provides an overview of the most important attempts to measure the number, scale and location of Africa's armed conflicts and provides a conceptual and political sketch of the terrain of struggle upon which these wars were waged. Part II, Ingredients analyses the role of five widely debated features of Africa's wars: the dynamics of neopatrimonial systems of governance; the construction and manipulation of ethnic identities; questions of sovereignty and self-determination; as well as the impact of natural resources and religion. Part III, Responses, discusses four major international reactions to Africa's wars: attempts to build a new institutional architecture to help promote peace and security on the continent; this architecture's two main policy instruments, peacemaking initiatives and peace operations; and efforts to develop the continent. War and Conflict in Africa will be essential reading for all students of international peace and security studies as well as Africa's international relations.

Writing the Nigeria-Biafra War
Writing the Nigeria-Biafra War

Author: Toyin Falola

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 513

ISBN-13: 1847011446

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21 Female Participation in War and the Implication of Nationalism: The Postcolonial Disconnection in Buchi Emecheta's Destination Biafra -- Select Bibliography -- Index

There Was a Country
There Was a Country

Author: Chinua Achebe

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2012-10-11

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 1101595981

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From the legendary author of Things Fall Apart—a long-awaited memoir of coming of age in a fragile new nation, and its destruction in a tragic civil war For more than forty years, Chinua Achebe maintained a considered silence on the events of the Nigerian civil war, also known as the Biafran War, of 1967–1970, addressing them only obliquely through his poetry. Decades in the making, There Was a Country is a towering account of one of modern Africa’s most disastrous events, from a writer whose words and courage left an enduring stamp on world literature. A marriage of history and memoir, vivid firsthand observation and decades of research and reflection, There Was a Country is a work whose wisdom and compassion remind us of Chinua Achebe’s place as one of the great literary and moral voices of our age.

Peace and Conflict in Africa
Peace and Conflict in Africa

Author: David Francis

Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.

Published: 2013-04-04

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 1848137494

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Nowhere in the world is the demand for peace more prominent and challenging than in Africa. From state collapse and anarchy in Somalia to protracted wars and rampant corruption in the Congo; from bloody civil wars and extreme poverty in Sierra Leone to humanitarian crisis and authoritarianism in Sudan, the continent is the focus of growing political and media attention. This book presents the first comprehensive overview of conflict and peace across the continent. Bringing together a range of leading academics from Africa and beyond, Peace and Conflict in Africa is an ideal introduction to key themes of conflict resolution, peacebuilding, security and development. The book's stress on the importance of indigenous Africa approaches to creating peace makes it an innovative and exciting intervention in the field.

How to Write About Africa
How to Write About Africa

Author: Binyavanga Wainaina

Publisher: One World

Published: 2023-06-06

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 0812989678

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From one of Africa’s most influential and eloquent essayists, a posthumous collection that highlights his biting satire and subversive wisdom on topics from travel to cultural identity to sexuality “A fierce literary talent . . . [Wainaina] shines a light on his continent without cliché.”—The Guardian “Africa is the only continent you can love—take advantage of this. . . . Africa is to be pitied, worshipped, or dominated. Whichever angle you take, be sure to leave the strong impression that without your intervention and your important book, Africa is doomed.” Binyavanga Wainaina was a pioneering voice in African literature, an award-winning memoirist and essayist remembered as one of the greatest chroniclers of contemporary African life. This groundbreaking collection brings together, for the first time, Wainaina’s pioneering writing on the African continent, including many of his most critically acclaimed pieces, such as the viral satirical sensation “How to Write About Africa.” Working fearlessly across a range of topics—from politics to international aid, cultural heritage, and redefined sexuality—he describes the modern world with sensual, emotional, and psychological detail, giving us a full-color view of his home country and continent. These works present the portrait of a giant in African literature who left a tremendous legacy.

Writing the Black Decade
Writing the Black Decade

Author: Joseph Ford

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2021-01-28

Total Pages: 179

ISBN-13: 1498581870

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Writing the Black Decade: Conflict and Criticism in Francophone Algerian Literature examines how literature—and the way we read, classify, and critique literature—impacts our understanding of the world at a time of conflict. Using the bitterly-contested Algerian Civil War as a case study, Joseph Ford argues that, while literature is frequently understood as an illuminating and emancipatory tool, it can, in fact, restrain our understanding of the world during a time of crisis and further entrench the polarized discourses that lead to conflict in the first place. Ford demonstrates how Francophone Algerian literature, along with the cultural and academic criticism that has surrounded it, has mobilized visions of Algeria over the past thirty years that often belie the complex and multi-layered realities of power, resistance, and conflict in the region. Scholars of literature, history, Francophone studies, and international relations will find this book particularly useful.

The Root Causes of Sudan's Civil Wars
The Root Causes of Sudan's Civil Wars

Author: Douglas Hamilton Johnson

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 9780253215840

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Sudan's post-independence history has been dominated by long, recurring, and bloody civil wars. Most commentators have attributed the country's political and civil strife either to an age-old racial and ethnic divide between Arabs and Africans or to colonially constructed inequalities. In The Root Causes of Sudan's Civil Wars, Douglas H. Johnson examines historical, political, economic, and social factors to come to a more subtle understanding of the trajectory of Sudan's civil wars. Johnson focuses on the essential differences between the modern Sudan's first civil war in the 1960s, the current war, and the minor conflicts generated by and contained within the larger wars. Regional and international factors, such as humanitarian aid, oil revenue, and terrorist organizations, are cited and examined as underlying issues that have exacerbated the violence. Readers will find an immensely readable yet nuanced and well-informed handling of the history and politics of Sudan's civil wars.

Africa's World War
Africa's World War

Author: Gerard Prunier

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2008-12-31

Total Pages: 570

ISBN-13: 0199743991

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The Rwandan genocide sparked a horrific bloodbath that swept across sub-Saharan Africa, ultimately leading to the deaths of some four million people. In this extraordinary history of the recent wars in Central Africa, Gerard Prunier offers a gripping account of how one grisly episode laid the groundwork for a sweeping and disastrous upheaval. Prunier vividly describes the grisly aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, when some two million refugees--a third of Rwanda's population--fled to exile in Zaire in 1996. The new Rwandan regime then crossed into Zaire and attacked the refugees, slaughtering upwards of 400,000 people. The Rwandan forces then turned on Zaire's despotic President Mobutu and, with the help of a number of allied African countries, overthrew him. But as Prunier shows, the collapse of the Mobutu regime and the ascension of the corrupt and erratic Laurent-D?sir? Kabila created a power vacuum that drew Rwanda, Uganda, Angola, Zimbabwe, Sudan, and other African nations into an extended and chaotic war. The heart of the book documents how the whole core of the African continent became engulfed in an intractible and bloody conflict after 1998, a devastating war that only wound down following the assassination of Kabila in 2001. Prunier not only captures all this in his riveting narrative, but he also indicts the international community for its utter lack of interest in what was then the largest conflict in the world. Praise for the hardcover: "The most ambitious of several remarkable new books that reexamine the extraordinary tragedy of Congo and Central Africa since the Rwandan genocide of 1994." --New York Review of Books "One of the first books to lay bare the complex dynamic between Rwanda and Congo that has been driving this disaster." --Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times Book Review "Lucid, meticulously researched and incisive, Prunier's will likely become the standard account of this under-reported tragedy." --Publishers Weekly

War as Experience
War as Experience

Author: Christine Sylvester

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-05-07

Total Pages: 162

ISBN-13: 1136233075

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This book is a major new contribution to our understanding of war and international relations (IR). Divided into two sections, the first part surveys the state of war and war studies in international relations, security studies and in feminist international relations. The second part addresses a missing area of IR studies of war that feminism is well-placed to fill in: the emotional and physical aspects of war. The author examines a wide variety of conflict situations, such as the Israel/Palestine dispute, the Cold War, Vietnam, Nicaragua, wars of liberation in Africa, genocidal war in Rwanda; humanitarian interventionist war in the Balkans, the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the 'war on terror'. Drawing on the latest feminist thinking, the author demonstrates how war is experienced as a body-based politics and in so doing provides an innovative and challenging corrective to traditional theories of war in international relations. This will be essential reading for all those with an interest in gender, war and international relations.