A History of Twentieth-century African Literatures

A History of Twentieth-century African Literatures PDF

Author: Oyekan Owomoyela

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 1993-01-01

Total Pages: 428

ISBN-13: 9780803286047

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African literatures, says volume editor Oyekan Owomoyela, "testify to the great and continuing impact of the colonizing project on the African universe." African writers must struggle constantly to define for themselves and other just what "Africa" is and who they are in a continent constructed as a geographic and cultural entity largely by Europeans. This study reflects the legacy of colonialism by devoting nine of its thirteen chapters to literature in "Europhone" languages—English, French, and Portuguese. Foremost among the Anglophone writers discussed are Nigerians Amos Tutuola, Chinua Achebe, and Wole Soyinka. Writers from East Africa are also represented, as are those from South Africa. Contributors for this section include Jonathan A. Peters, Arlene A. Elder, John F. Povey, Thomas Knipp, and J. Ndukaku Amankulor. In African Francophone literature, we see both writers inspired by the French assimilationist system and those influenced by Negritude, the African-culture affirmation movement. Contributors here include Servanne Woodward, Edris Makward, and Alain Ricard. African literature in Portuguese, reflecting the nature of one of the most oppressive colonizing projects in Africa, is treated by Russell G. Hamilton. Robert Cancel discusses African-language literatures, while Oyekan Owomoyela treats the question of the language of African literatures. Carole Boyce Davies and Elaine Savory Fido focus on the special problems of African women writers, while Hans M. Zell deals with the broader issues of publishing—censorship, resources, and organization.

The Rise of the African Novel

The Rise of the African Novel PDF

Author: Mukoma Wa Ngugi

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2018-03-27

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 047205368X

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

African Print Cultures

African Print Cultures PDF

Author: Derek Peterson

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2016-09-29

Total Pages: 460

ISBN-13: 0472122134

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The essays collected in African Print Cultures claim African newspapers as subjects of historical and literary study. Newspapers were not only vehicles for anticolonial nationalism. They were also incubators of literary experimentation and networks by which new solidarities came into being. By focusing on the creative work that African editors and contributors did, this volume brings an infrastructure of African public culture into view. The first of four thematic sections, “African Newspaper Networks,” considers the work that newspaper editors did to relate events within their locality to happenings in far-off places. This work of correlation and juxtaposition made it possible for distant people to see themselves as fellow travellers. “Experiments with Genre” explores how newspapers nurtured the development of new literary genres, such as poetry, realist fiction, photoplays, and travel writing in African languages and in English. “Newspapers and Their Publics” looks at the ways in which African newspapers fostered the creation of new kinds of communities and served as networks for public interaction, political and otherwise. The final section, “Afterlives, ” is about the longue durée of history that newspapers helped to structure, and how, throughout the twentieth century, print allowed contributors to view their writing as material meant for posterity.

Encyclopedia of African Literature

Encyclopedia of African Literature PDF

Author: Simon Gikandi

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2003-09-02

Total Pages: 886

ISBN-13: 1134582234

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The most comprehensive reference work on African literature to date, this book covers all the key historical and cultural issues in the field. The Encyclopedia contains over 600 entries covering criticism and theory, African literature's development as a field of scholarship, and studies of established and lesser-known writers and their texts. While the greatest proportion of literary work in Africa has been a product of the twentieth century, the Encyclopedia also covers the literature back to the earliest eras of story-telling and oral transmission, making this a unique and valuable resource for those studying social sciences as well as humanities. This work includes cross-references, suggestions for further reading, and a comprehensive index.

West African Narratives of Slavery

West African Narratives of Slavery PDF

Author: Sandra E. Greene

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2011-02-16

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 025322294X

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Slavery in Africa existed for hundreds of years before it was abolished in the late 19th century. Yet, we know little about how enslaved individuals, especially those who never left Africa, talked about their experiences. Collecting never before published or translated narratives of Africans from southeastern Ghana, Sandra E. Greene explores how these writings reveal the thoughts, emotions, and memories of those who experienced slavery and the slave trade. Greene considers how local norms and the circumstances behind the recording of the narratives influenced their content and impact. This unprecedented study affords unique insights into how ordinary West Africans understood and talked about their lives during a time of change and upheaval.

Black on Black

Black on Black PDF

Author: John Cullen Gruesser

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2021-05-11

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 0813183154

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Black on Black provides the first comprehensive analysis of the modern African American literary response to Africa, from W.E.B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk to Alice Walker's The Color Purple. Combining cutting-edge theory, extensive historical and archival research, and close readings of individual texts, Gruesser reveals the diversity of the African American response to Countee Cullen's question, "What is Africa to Me?" John Gruesser uses the concept of Ethiopianism—the biblically inspired belief that black Americans would someday lead Africans and people of the diaspora to a bright future—to provide a framework for his study. Originating in the eighteenth century and inspiring religious and political movements throughout the 1800s, Ethiopianism dominated African American depictions of Africa in the first two decades of the twentieth century, particularly in the writings of Du Bois, Sutton Griggs, and Pauline Hopkins. Beginning with the Harlem Renaissance and continuing through the Italian invasion and occupation of Ethiopia, however, its influence on the portrayal of the continent slowly diminished. Ethiopianism's decline can first be seen in the work of writers closely associated with the New Negro Movement, including Alain Locke and Langston Hughes, and continued in the dramatic work of Shirley Graham, the novels of George Schuyler, and the poetry and prose of Melvin Tolson. The final rejection of Ethiopianism came after the dawning of the Cold War and roughly coincided with the advent of postcolonial Africa in works by authors such as Richard Wright, Lorraine Hansberry, and Alice Walker.

African Literatures in the 20th Century

African Literatures in the 20th Century PDF

Author: Leonard S. Klein

Publisher: Burns & Oates

Published: 1986

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13:

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Covers the literatures of Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malagasy, Malawi, Mali, Mauritia, Morocco, Mozambique, Nigeria, Reunion, Sao Tome, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Upper Volta, Zaire, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, and authors such as Mohammed Dib, Mouloud Feraoun, Kateb Yacine, Mouloud Mammeri, Jose Luandino Vieira, Mongo Beti, Ferdinand Oyono, Tawfiq al-Hakim, Taha Husayn, Yusuf Idris, Najib Mahfuz, Lenrie Peters, Ayi Kwei Armah, Kofi Awoonor, Camara Laye, Bernard Binlin Dadie, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Thomas Mofolo, Chinua Achebe, John Pepper Clark, Cyprian Ekwensi, Gabriel Okara, Christopher Okigbo, Wole Soyinka, Amos Tutuola, Birago Diop, Ousmane Sembene, Leopold Sedar Senghor, Nuruddin Farah, Peter Abrahams, Dennis Brutus, Roy Campbell, Athol Fugard, Nadine Gordimer, Alex La Guma, Sarah Gertrude Millin, Ezekiel (Es'kia) Mphalele, Alan Paton, William Plomer, Olive Schreiner, Pauline Smith, Shaaban Robert and Okot p'Bitek.

Black Miami in the Twentieth Century

Black Miami in the Twentieth Century PDF

Author: Marvin Dunn

Publisher: University Press of Florida

Published: 1997-11-19

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 0813059577

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The first book devoted to the history of African Americans in south Florida and their pivotal role in the growth and development of Miami, Black Miami in the Twentieth Century traces their triumphs, drudgery, horrors, and courage during the first 100 years of the city's history. Firsthand accounts and over 130 photographs, many of them never published before, bring to life the proud heritage of Miami's black community. Beginning with the legendary presence of black pirates on Biscayne Bay, Marvin Dunn sketches the streams of migration by which blacks came to account for nearly half the city’s voters at the turn of the century. From the birth of a new neighborhood known as "Colored Town," Dunn traces the blossoming of black businesses, churches, civic groups, and fraternal societies that made up the black community. He recounts the heyday of "Little Broadway" along Second Avenue, with photos and individual recollections that capture the richness and vitality of black Miami's golden age between the wars. A substantial portion of the book is devoted to the Miami civil rights movement, and Dunn traces the evolution of Colored Town to Overtown and the subsequent growth of Liberty City. He profiles voting rights, housing and school desegregation, and civil disturbances like the McDuffie and Lozano incidents, and analyzes the issues and leadership that molded an increasingly diverse community through decades of strife and violence. In concluding chapters, he assesses the current position of the community--its socioeconomic status, education issues, residential patterns, and business development--and considers the effect of recent waves of immigration from Latin America and the Caribbean. Dunn combines exhaustive research in regional media and archives with personal interviews of pioneer citizens and longtime residents in a work that documents as never before the life of one of the most important black communities in the United States.