Childhood In African Literature

This book examines the representation of figures, memories and images of childhood in selected contemporary diasporic African fiction by Adichie, Abani, Wainaina and Oyeyemi. The book argues that childhood is a key framework for thinking about contemporary African and African Diasporic identities. It argues that through the privileging of childhood memory, alternative conceptions of time emerge in this literature, and which allow African writers to re-imagine what family, ethnicity, nation means within the new spaces of diaspora that a majority of them occupy. The book therefore looks at the connections between childhood, space, time and memory, childhood gender and sexuality, childhoods in contexts of war, as well as migrant childhoods. These dimensions of childhood particularly relate to the return of the memory of Biafra, the figures of child soldiers, memories of growing up in Cold War Africa, queer boyhoods/sonhood as well as experiences of migration within Africa, North America and Europe.

"African authors have consistently returned to childhood to find their personal as well as their racial roots. Far from being merely nostalgic yearnings for a lost paradise, many of the treatments of childhood as shown in articles in this issue have exposed a grim reality of cruelty, harshness, parental (particularly paternal) egocentrism and extraordinary bruisings of the vulnerable child psyche. Camara Laye may have portrayed a paradise state but Yvonne Vera has treated one of the cruelest features of childhood anywhere. African authors generally have been sternly responsible in their portrayal of childhood." -- Publisher's description

Representing Africa in Children’s Literature explores how African and Western authors portray youth in contemporary African societies, critically examining the dominant images of Africa and Africans in books published between 1960 and 2005. The book focuses on contemporary children’s and young adult literature set in Africa, examining issues regarding colonialism, the politics of representation, and the challenges posed to both "insiders" and "outsiders" writing about Africa for children.

What does it mean to be a child in Africa? In the detached Western media, narratives of penury, wickedness and death have dominated portrayals of African childhood. The hegemonic lens of the West has failed to take into account the intricacies of not only what it means to be an African child in local and culturally specific contexts, but also African childhood in general. Challenging colonial discourses, this edited volume guides the reader through different comprehensions and perspectives of childhood in Africa. Using a blend of theory, empiricism and history, the contributors to this volume offer studies from a range of fields including African literature, Afro-centric psychology and sociology. Importantly, in its eclectic geographical coverage of Africa, this book unashamedly presents the good, the bad and the ugly of African childhood. The resilience, creativity, pains and triumphs of African childhood are skilfully woven together to present the myriad of lived experiences and aspirations of children from across Africa. As an important contribution to African childhood studies, this book has the potential to be used by policymakers to shape, sustain or change socio-cultural, economic and education systems that accommodate African childhood dynamics and experiences at different levels.

It is increasingly clear that children and the youth today play a significant role in the labour process in Africa. But, to what extent is this role benign? And when and why does this role become exploitative rather than beneficial? This book on children and the youth in Africa sets out to address these questions. The book observes that in Africa today, children are under pressure to work, often engaged in the worst forms of child labour and therefore not living out their role as children. It argues that the social and economic environment of the African child is markedly different from what occurs elsewhere, and goes further to challenge all factors that have combined in stripping children of their childhood and turning them into instruments and commodities in the labour process. It also explains the sources, dynamics, magnitude and likely consequences of the exploitation of children and the youth in contemporary Africa. The book is an invaluable contribution to the discourse on children, while the case studies are aimed at creating more awareness about the development problems of children and the youth in Africa, with a view to evolving more effective national and global responses.

For all that is known about the depth and breadth of African American history, we still understand surprisingly little about the lives of African American children, particularly those affected by northern emancipation. But hidden in institutional records, school primers and penmanship books, biographical sketches, and unpublished documents is a rich archive that reveals the social and affective worlds of northern Black children. Drawing evidence from the urban centers of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, Crystal Webster's innovative research yields a powerful new history of African American childhood before the Civil War. Webster argues that young African Americans were frequently left outside the nineteenth century's emerging constructions of both race and childhood. They were marginalized in the development of schooling, ignored in debates over child labor, and presumed to lack the inherent innocence ascribed to white children. But Webster shows that Black children nevertheless carved out physical and social space for play, for learning, and for their own aspirations. Reading her sources against the grain, Webster reveals a complex reality for antebellum Black children. Lacking societal status, they nevertheless found meaningful agency as historical actors, making the most of the limited freedoms and possibilities they enjoyed.

What does it mean to be a child in Africa? In the detached Western media, narratives of penury, wickedness and death have dominated portrayals of African childhood. The hegemonic lens of the West has failed to take into account the intricacies of not only what it means to be an African child in local and culturally specific contexts, but also African childhood in general. Challenging colonial discourses, this edited volume guides the reader through different comprehensions and perspectives of childhood in Africa. Using a blend of theory, empiricism and history, the contributors to this volume offer studies from a range of fields including African literature, Afro-centric psychology and sociology. Importantly, in its eclectic geographical coverage of Africa, this book unashamedly presents the good, the bad and the ugly of African childhood. The resilience, creativity, pains and triumphs of African childhood are skilfully woven together to present the myriad of lived experiences and aspirations of children from across Africa. As an important contribution to African childhood studies, this book has the potential to be used by policymakers to shape, sustain or change socio-cultural, economic and education systems that accommodate African childhood dynamics and experiences at different levels.

Winner of a Betty Trask Award Shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Commonwealth Book Prize Longlisted for the Desmond Elliot Prize The Spider King's Daughter is a modern-day Romeo and Juliet set against the backdrop of a changing Lagos, a city torn between tradition and modernity, corruption and truth, love and family loyalty. Seventeen-year-old Abike Johnson is the favourite child of her wealthy father. She lives in a She lives in a sprawling mansion in Lagos, protected by armed guards and ferried everywhere in a huge black jeep. But being her father's favourite comes with uncomfortable duties, and she is often lonely behind the high walls of her house. A world away from Abike's mansion, in the city's slums, lives a seventeen-year-old hawker struggling to make sense of the world. His family lost everything after his father's death and now he runs after cars on the roadside selling ice cream to support his mother and sister. When Abike buys ice cream from the hawker one day, they strike up an unlikely and tentative romance, defying the prejudices of Nigerian society. But as they grow closer, revelations from the past threaten their relationship and both Abike and the hawker must decide where their loyalties lie.