Postcolonial African Writers

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.

Postcolonial African writers have made an enormous contribution to world literature. These writers frequently examine such issues as emerging identities in the postcolonial climate, neo-colonialism and new forms of oppression, cultural and political hegemonies, neo-elitism, language appropriation, and economic instability. During the last decade, their works have elicited increasing critical attention. This reference book overviews the richness of postcolonial African literature. The volume focuses on how postcoloniality is reflected in the novels, poetry, prose, and drama of major, minor, and emerging writers from diverse countries in Africa, including representative North and South African writers as well as writers of the Indian diaspora born in Africa. While authors in indigenous African languages continue to produce valuable works, the volume principally considers Anglophone and Francophone authors, along with two Lusophone writers. The reference book begins with an introductory essay on postcolonial criticism and African writing. The volume then presents alphabetically arranged profiles of approximately 60 writers, such as Chinua Achebe, Ama Ata Aidoo, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Buchi Emecheta, Nadine Gordimer, Bessie Head, Tabar Ben Jelloun, Doris Lessing, Peter Nazareth, Gabriel Okara, Femi Osofisan, and Efua Theodora Sutherland. 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 works, and a bibliography of primary and secondary sources. These profiles are written by expert contributors and reflect many valuable perspectives. The volume concludes with a selected general bibliography of the most important critical works on postcolonial African literature.

Postcolonial African writers have made an enormous contribution to world literature. These writers frequently examine such issues as emerging identities in the postcolonial climate, neo-colonialism and new forms of oppression, cultural and political hegemonies, neo-elitism, language appropriation, and economic instability. During the last decade, their works have elicited increasing critical attention. This reference book overviews the richness of postcolonial African literature. The volume focuses on how postcoloniality is reflected in the novels, poetry, prose, and drama of major, minor, and emerging writers from diverse countries in Africa, including representative North and South African writers as well as writers of the Indian diaspora born in Africa. While authors in indigenous African languages continue to produce valuable works, the volume principally considers Anglophone and Francophone authors, along with two Lusophone writers. The reference book begins with an introductory essay on postcolonial criticism and African writing. The volume then presents alphabetically arranged profiles of approximately 60 writers, such as Chinua Achebe, Ama Ata Aidoo, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Buchi Emecheta, Nadine Gordimer, Bessie Head, Tabar Ben Jelloun, Doris Lessing, Peter Nazareth, Gabriel Okara, Femi Osofisan, and Efua Theodora Sutherland. 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 works, and a bibliography of primary and secondary sources. These profiles are written by expert contributors and reflect many valuable perspectives. The volume concludes with a selected general bibliography of the most important critical works on postcolonial African literature.

Post Colonial Identities revisits issues regarding the newer literature within the expansive African heritage of diverse regional and national groupings. It is poised at substantiating the uniformity of Africa in terms of literary and cultural movements, and lending some inter-disciplinary insights on the whole body of literature through twentieth century history.

“Nwoka’s debut feels like a dream, or a fable, or something in between . . . Recommended for fans of Nnedi Okorafor’s Remote Control or Nghi Vo’s The Empress of Salt and Fortune.” —Ashley Rayner, Booklist "[God of Mercy] owes a debt to Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, revising that novel's message for the recent past . . . A well-turned dramatization of spiritual and social culture clashes." —Kirkus Reviews Homegoing meets Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Okezie Nwọka’s debut novel is a powerful reimagining of a history erased. God of Mercy is set in Ichulu, an Igbo village where the people’s worship of their gods is absolute. Their adherence to tradition has allowed them to evade the influences of colonialism and globalization. But the village is reckoning with changes, including a war between gods signaled by Ijeoma, a girl who can fly. As tensions grow between Ichulu and its neighboring colonized villages, Ijeoma is forced into exile. Reckoning with her powers and exposed to the world beyond Ichulu, she is imprisoned by a Christian church under the accusation of being a witch. Suffering through isolation, she comes to understand the truth of merciful love. Reimagining the nature of tradition and cultural heritage and establishing a folklore of the uncolonized, God of Mercy is a novel about wrestling with gods, confronting demons, and understanding one's true purpose.

This accessible and unusually wide-ranging book is essential reading for anyone interested in postcolonial and African American women's writing. It provides a valuable gender and culture inflected critical introduction to well established women writers: Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Margaret Atwood, Suniti Namjoshi, Bessie Head, and others from the U.S.A., India, Africa, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and introduces emergent writers from South East Asia, Cyprus and Oceania. Engaging with and clarifying contested critical areas of feminism and the postcolonial; exploring historical background and cultural context, economic, political, and psychoanalytic influences on gendered experience, it provides a cohesive discussion of key issues such as cultural and gendered identity, motherhood, mothertongue, language, relationships, women's economic constraints and sexual politics.

This book explores how writers such as Amos Tutuola, George Lamming, Samuel Selvon, VS Naipaul, Chinua Achebe, Derek Walcott, Kamau Brathwaite, and Wole Soyinka came to be published in London in important educational series such as the Three Crown Series and African Writers Series. Low takes account of recent debates in the discipline of book history, especially issues that deal with social, cultural, and economic questions of authorship, publishing histories, canon formation, and the production, distribution and reception of texts in the literary market place. Searching publishing archives for readers reports, editorial correspondence, and interventions, this book represents a necessary exploration of postwar publishing contexts and the dissemination of texts from London that is crucial to literary histories of the postcolonial book. Taken together as a postwar generation, this cohort of now canonical writers helped "imagine" their respective national communities, yet their intellectual labors entered an elite transnational literary circuit, and correspondingly, were transformed into textual commodities by the economic, social, cultural, and institutional transactions that were part of an expanding print capitalism.