The Question Of Language In African Literature Today

This book explores the performance of such writers as Soyinka, Clark, Okigbo, Oyono-Mbia and Uchenna Ubesie, among others.

North America: Africa World Press

Ngugi wrote his first novels and plays in English but was determined, even before his detention without trial in 1978, to move to writing in Gikuyu.

Tongue and Mother Tongue takes on two compelling challenges: the language question and the place and role of the mother tongue in African literature. This collection is the culmination of the fierce, decades-old debate on the question of African literature and its criticism. The fourteen essays range from a variety of critical and theoretical perspectives, covering the theoretical and ideological aspects of the language question, the nature of criticism, the influence of the oral tradition, critical analysis of mother tongue literature and textual analyses.

Engaging questions of language, identity, and reception to restore South African and diaspora writing to the African literary tradition