A New Generation Of African Writers

Brenda Cooper examines the work of the new generation of African writers who have placed migration as central to their writing

Brenda Cooper examines the work of the new generation of African writers who have placed migration as central to their writing.

Literature remains one of the few disciplines that reflect the experiences, sensibility, worldview, and living realities of its people. Contemporary African literature captures the African experience in history and politics in a multiplicity of ways. Politics itself has come to intersect and impact on most, if not all, aspects of the African reality. This relationship of literature with African people’s lives and condition forms the setting of this study. Tanure Ojaide’s Indigeneity, Globalization, and African Literature: Personally Speaking belongs with a well-established tradition of personal reflections on literature by African creative writer-critics. Ojaide’s contribution brings to the table the perspective of what is now recognized as a “second generation” writer, a poet, and a concerned citizen of Nigeria’s Niger Delta area.

Standing at the crossroads of American literature and the current African American renaissance, Giant Steps presents a vibrant and wonderfully diverse collection of young black writing. Through generous selections of award-winning poetry, fiction, and nonfiction by writers born after 1960, this groundbreaking anthology welcomes readers into the future of African American writing. Taking its spirit and title from the John Coltrane composition released in 1960, Giant Steps offers an extraordinary window into post-civil rights literature. From Edwidge Danticat and Colson Whitehead to Rebecca Walker and Hilton Als, these authors are not "emerging" but have already arrived. They are National Book Award finalists and winners of the National Poetry Series and the Pushcart Prize. They have been featured in The New Yorker, Time, and Newsweek as our brightest stars; they have been heard through National Public Radio, Rhino Records, and Oprah's Book Club. Previously unpublished works by Danzy Senna, Philippe Wamba, and Elizabeth Alexander run alongside contemporary classics. They are popular and prophetic, literary and experimental. Together with a useful bibliography of current writing and a discography of influential music from soul to jazz to hip-hop, Giant Steps celebrates the complexities of race while paying tribute to the personal and collective histories that are forging this new generation. The writers found in Giant Steps are not "emerging" but have already arrived. From Best American Poetry and O. Henry Award winners to National Book Award finalists and Oprah's Book Club members, the thirty-five authors selected here are some of the best and the brightest writing today. The book features the full diversity of the African American experience, discussing everything from slavery to sexuality, growing up poor, gay, biracial, or all three. There are stories about the American Revolution, slave insurrections, and the year 1979; there are poems about loss and Sam Cooke; essays about sharecropping and the New South. New and unpublished writing by Danzy Senna, Colson Whitehead, and Darieck Scott is collected alongside work by such favorites as Edwidge Danticat, Kevin Powell, Hilton Als, and Randall Keenan. The writers in Giant Steps are at the heart of what's happening in contemporary culture, and this anthology welcomes readers to the future and powerful present of African American writing.The writers found in Giant Steps are not "emerging" but have already arrived. From Best American Poetry and O. Henry Award winners to National Book Award finalists and Oprah's Book Club members, the thirty-five authors selected here are some of the best and the brightest writing today. The book features the full diversity of the African American experience, discussing everything from slavery to sexuality, growing up poor, gay, biracial, or all three. There are stories about the American Revolution, slave insurrections, and the year 1979; there are poems about loss and Sam Cooke; essays about sharecropping and the New South. New and unpublished writing by Danzy Senna, Colson Whitehead, and Darieck Scott is collected alongside work by such favorites as Edwidge Danticat, Kevin Powell, Hilton Als, and Randall Keenan. The writers in Giant Steps are at the heart of what's happening in contemporary culture, and this anthology welcomes readers to the future and powerful present of African American writing.

Addresses the development since the 1950s of a new type of Francophone African novel created by first-generation African authors living in France. This book examines how these authors, men and women, part from mainstream African literature by exploring more personal avenues while retaining a shared interest in the community of African emigrants.

The first book-length study on the relationship between African literature and new media.

This volume of the historic journal African Literature Today provides an overview of the position of African literature at the end of the 20th century and an examination of the directions that African literature is now taking with new and emerging writers and the growth of writing by African women. Contributors examine the influence of new concerns such as globalization and the view from the diaspora and anticipate where this might lead the next generation of African writers. Contents: Editorial Article: New Directions in African Literature: Building on the Legacies of the 20th Century by Ernest N. Emenyonu- Articles: African Literature in the 21st Century: Challenges for Writers & Critics by Charles Nnolim-Bursting at the Seams: New Dimensions for African Literature in the 21st Century by Thomas Hale- New Trends in the Sierra Leonean Novel by Eustace Palmer- Transcultural Identity in African Narrative of Childhood by Richard Priebe-The Marks Left on the Surface; Zoe Wicomb's David's Story by Kenneth W. Harrow- Mothering Daughters: The Other Side of the Story by Monica Bungaro-Transcending the Margins: New Trends in Female Writings in Africa by Iniobong I. Uko-Rethinking Nation and Narrative in a Global Era: Recent African Writing by Nana Wilson-Tagoe-A Last Shot at the 20th Century Canon by Bernth Lindfors-Reviews.