African Fiction and Joseph Conrad

African Fiction and Joseph Conrad PDF

Author: Byron Caminero-Santangelo

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 2004-12-30

Total Pages: 186

ISBN-13: 9780791462621

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Interrogates the "writing back to the center" approach to intertextuality and explores alternatives to it.

The Aesthetics of Mandé Hunting Tradition in African Fiction

The Aesthetics of Mandé Hunting Tradition in African Fiction PDF

Author: Amadou Ouédraogo

Publisher: Sans Souci Books

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13:

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From its medieval origins to the present, Mandé culture in West Africa is known for its highly intriguing art and tradition of hunting; undeniably one of its most conspicuous distinctive features. Totally entrenched in myth, legend and history; firmly grounded in the supernatural, the divine and the abstruse, hunting is altogether a cult, a ritual gesture, a token of allegiance to divine forces. Considered to be a dauntless intrusion of man into the realm of metaphysics and the “unknown”, the hunting vocation transcends by far the confines of human and tangible spheres. This study examines various articulations of the hunting art and tradition as they are conveyed in numerous African literary and cinematographic works. It elucidates the mythical and supernatural magnitude of the hunting activity by showing how it is presided over by immutable deities and tutelary figures. Held to be endowed with infrangible supernatural and esoteric proportions, hunting is deemed to be a reflection of Mandé people’s worldview, a vibrant expression of how they perceive and articulate their existence as part of, and in relation to the world. From all perspectives, traditional hunting in Mandé society is viewed as a noble, dignified and revered activity; sustained by a vehement sense of brotherhood, esprit de corps, faithful loyalty, compassion, munificence. It encompasses a set of principles and values enjoined by transcendent forces, in illo tempore, and meant to serve as timeless paradigmatic ideals to be preserved and handed down along generations. By persistently echoing the magnificence of the hunting art and tradition, African artists place the vocation at the heart of contemporary Africans’ yearning quest for origins, identity and plenitude.

Africa Writes Back to Self

Africa Writes Back to Self PDF

Author: Evan M. Mwangi

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2010-07-02

Total Pages: 363

ISBN-13: 1438426976

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The profound effects of colonialism and its legacies on African cultures have led postcolonial scholars of recent African literature to characterize contemporary African novels as, first and foremost, responses to colonial domination by the West. In Africa Writes Back to Self, Evan Maina Mwangi argues instead that the novels are primarily engaged in conversation with each other, particularly over emergent gender issues such as the representation of homosexuality and the disenfranchisement of women by male-dominated governments. He covers the work of canonical novelists Nadine Gordimer, Chinua Achebe, NguÅgiÅ wa Thiong'o, and J. M. Coetzee, as well as popular writers such as Grace Ogot, David Maillu, Promise Okekwe, and Rebeka Njau. Mwangi examines the novels' self-reflexive fictional strategies and their potential to refigure the dynamics of gender and sexuality in Africa and demote the West as the reference point for cultures of the Global South.

Chinua Achebeís Legacy

Chinua Achebeís Legacy PDF

Author: Ogude, James

Publisher: Africa Institute of South Africa

Published: 2015-12-01

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13: 0798304901

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Chinua Achebe's novels and essays have always drawn our attention to issues of memory, the story, history and our own obligation to history as Africans. Achebe constantly goes back to the authority of narrative - the story; and as the subsequent generations of African writers like Chimamanda Adichie keep returning to, to celebrate Africa's many stories, its moments of failure and triumph. Achebe, more than any other writer on this continent, has inspired many, and hopefully the African story tellers of the coming centuries, irrespective of their location will continue to be inspired by him. This collection of essays is an enduring tribute to this rich legacy of Achebe.

Women in Chains

Women in Chains PDF

Author: Venetria K. Patton

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2012-02-01

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 1438415613

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2000CHOICEOutstanding Academic Title Using writers such as Harriet Wilson, Frances E. W. Harper, Pauline Hopkins, Toni Morrison, Sherley Anne Williams, and Gayl Jones, the author highlights recurring themes and the various responses of black women writers to the issues of race and gender. Time and again these writers link slavery with motherhood—their depictions of black womanhood are tied to the effects of slavery and represented through the black mother. Patton shows that both the image others have of black women as well as black women's own self image is framed and influenced by the history of slavery. This history would have us believe that female slaves were mere breeders and not mothers. However, Patton uses the mother figure as a tool to create an intriguing interdisciplinary literary analysis.

Hidden Legacies: African Presence in European Antiques

Hidden Legacies: African Presence in European Antiques PDF

Author: Tanzy Ward

Publisher:

Published: 2020-12-20

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9780578881034

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'Hidden Legacies: African Presence in European Antiques' emphasizes the historical significance and underwhelming acclaim that collectibles depicting African subjects receive. The world of classical antiques and European collectibles has an expansive and intriguing unsung collection that is often overlooked not given a proper representation. Hidden Legacies seeks to identify, analyze, and reflect on the diverse European antiques that feature African descendants. Vivid paintings, detailed cameos, fascinating photography, and extraordinary sculptures are studied in each chapter, allowing the reader to reflect on its historic importance and the philosophical cultural studies relating to European antiques. Hidden Legacies calls attention to the impressive collectibles that feature African subjects from various periods, including the Renaissance and Victorian Eras.

Teaching the African Novel

Teaching the African Novel PDF

Author: Gaurav Desai

Publisher: Modern Language Association of America

Published: 2009-01-01

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781603290371

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What is the African novel, and how should it be taught? The twenty-three essays of this volume address these two questions and in the process convey a wealth of information and ideas about the diverse regions, peoples, nations, languages, and writers of the African continent. Topics include Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's favoring of indigenous languages and literary traditions over European; the special place of Marxism in African letters;the influence of Frantz Fanon; women writers and the sub-Saharan novel;the Maghrebian novel;the novel and the griot epic in the Sahel;Islam in the West African novel;novels in Spanish from Equatorial Guinea;apartheid and postapartheid fiction;African writers in the diaspora;globalization in East African fiction; teaching Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart to students in different countries;the Onitsha market romance. The volume editor, Gaurav Desai, writes, "The point of the volume is to encourage a reading of Africa that is sensitive to its history of colonization but at the same time responsive to its present multiracial and multicultural condition."

How to Read African American Literature

How to Read African American Literature PDF

Author: Aida Levy-Hussen

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2016-12-13

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1479838144

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How to Read African American Literature offers a series of provocations to unsettle the predominant assumptions readers make when encountering post-Civil Rights black fiction. Foregrounding the large body of literature and criticism that grapples with legacies of the slave past, Aida Levy-Hussen’s argument develops on two levels: as a textual analysis of black historical fiction, and as a critical examination of the reading practices that characterize the scholarship of our time. Drawing on psychoanalysis, memory studies, and feminist and queer theory, Levy-Hussen examines how works by Toni Morrison, David Bradley, Octavia Butler, Charles Johnson, and others represent and mediate social injury and collective grief. In the criticism that surrounds these novels, she identifies two major interpretive approaches: “therapeutic reading” (premised on the assurance that literary confrontations with historical trauma will enable psychic healing in the present), and “prohibitive reading” (anchored in the belief that fictions of returning to the past are dangerous and to be avoided). Levy-Hussen argues that these norms have become overly restrictive, standing in the way of a more supple method of interpretation that recognizes and attends to the indirect, unexpected, inconsistent, and opaque workings of historical fantasy and desire. Moving beyond the question of whether literature must heal or abandon historical wounds, Levy-Hussen proposes new ways to read African American literature now.

The Granta Book of the African Short Story

The Granta Book of the African Short Story PDF

Author: Helon Habila

Publisher: Granta Books

Published: 2011-09-01

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 1847084389

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Presenting a diverse and dazzling collection from all over the continent, from Morocco to Zimbabwe, Uganda to Kenya. Helon Habila focuses on younger, newer writers - contrasted with some of their older, more established peers - to give a fascinating picture of a new and more liberated Africa. These writers are characterized by their engagement with the wider world and the opportunities offered by the end of apartheid, the end of civil wars and dictatorships, and the possibilities of free movement. Their work is inspired by travel and exile. They are liberated, global and expansive. As Dambudzo Marechera wrote: 'If you're a writer for a specific nation or specific race, then f*** you." These are the stories of a new Africa, punchy, self-confident and defiant. Includes stories by: Fatou Diome; Aminatta Forna; Manuel Rui; Patrice Nganang; Leila Aboulela; Zo Wicomb; Alaa Al Aswany; Doreen Baingana; E.C. Osondu.