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| Library status: currently open during regularly scheduled hours. |
African Literature As Political Philosophy by
The politics of development in Africa have always been central concerns of the continent's literature. Yet ideas about the best way to achieve this development, and even what development itself should look like, have been hotly contested.African Literature as Political Philosophy looks in particular at Achebe's Anthills of the Savannah and Petals of Blood by Ngugi wa Thiong'o, but situates these within the broader context of developments in African literature over the past half-century, discussing writers from Ayi Kwei Armah to Wole Soyinka. M.S.C. Okolo provides a thorough analysis of the authors' differing approaches and how these emerge from the literature. She shows the roots of Achebe's reformism and Ngugi's insistence on revolution and how these positions take shape in their work. Okolo argues that these authors have been profoundly affected by the political situation of Africa, but have also helped to create a new African political philosophy.
The African Novel in English by
The rise to global prominence of African literature, and particularly of the African novel, is one of the most vital and dynamic developments in contemporary world culture. In his book, Keith Booker provides an introduction to eight African novels written in English. The novels Booker examines include Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, Buchi Emecheta's The Joys of Motherhood ,Ayi Kwei Armah's The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born,Ama Ata Aidoo's Our Sister Killjoy, Nadine Gordimer's Burger's Daughter, Alex La Guma's In the Fog of the Seasons' End ,Ngugi wa Thiong'o's Devil on the Cross,and Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions. Booker uses these works to illustrate the scope and variety of the African novel and the general aesthetic, cultural, and political concerns that have motivated African authors. The selected novels also can be read and studied together thus making The African Novel in English and ideal textbook for university courses.
Approaches to Teaching Achebe's Things Fall Apart by 
Chinua Achebe by
Chinua Achebe has long been regarded as Africa's foremost writer. In this major new study, Jago Morrison offers a comprehensive reassessment of his work as an author, broadcaster, editor and political thinker. With new, historically contextualised readings of all of his major works, this is the first study to view Achebe's oeuvre in its entirety, from Things Fall Apart and the early novels, through the revolutionary Ahiara Declaration - previously attributed to Emeka Ojukwu - to the revealing final works The Education of a British Educated Child and There Was a Country. Contesting previous interpretations which align Achebe too easily with this or that nationalist programme, the book reveals Achebe as a much more troubled figure than critics have habitually assumed. Authoritative and wide-ranging, this book will be essential reading for scholars and students of Achebe's work in the twenty-first century.
Chinua Achebe by
This book provides a detailed examination of the writings of Chinua Achebe, Africa's best-known and most widely-read author, shortlisted for the 1987 Booker Prize. Dr Innes studies his writings, lectures and activities chronologically, in the context of Nigerian culture and politics and their interaction with Western cultures and powers. Her analysis goes beyond that of previously published studies, to examine Achebe's short stories, essays and poetry, and his most recent publications, Anthills of the Savannah (1987) and Hopes and Impediments (1988). Particular emphasis is placed on Achebe's departure from European literary models to create a new kind of fiction which seeks to challenge the preconceptions of African and Western audiences alike, and which is of considerable literary and political significance. This study will be invaluable to readers of Achebe and to students and teachers of African literature and politics, and modern fiction.
Chinua Achebe's Legacy: Illuminations from Africa by
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.
Chinua Achebe: A Biography by
"... some 10 years of painstaking enquiry are presented with sustained energy... Ezenwa-Ohaeto has completed a remarkable feat..." --West Africa "... a gold mine of a source for future researchers." --The Literary Griot "... in this meticulously researched work, [Ezenwa-Ohaeto] provides a wealth of information that should prove invaluable to all future studies of Achebe." --Library Journal "Great back-up for classes reading Achebe's Things Fall Apart." --Booklist "This pioneering biography draws upon a wealth of printed and oral sources to produce a vivid record of the life and times of Africa's most influential novelist. Ezenwa-Ohaeto is Achebe's Boswell; nothing of importance, large or small, seems to escape him." --Bernth Lindfors, University of Texas This is the first biography of the internationally acclaimed author of Things Fall Apart, the most widely read African novel, first published in 1958 and now a classic, with more than 12 million copies in print. Things Fall Apart is a defining moment in African and world literature. Ezenwa-Ohaeto's biography is the first comprehensive account of Achebe's life to date. Based on extensive research and numerous interviews, this is also the first work to trace the story of Achebe's life while putting his achievement into a social and historical context.
Chinua Achebe: The Man and his Works by
Achebe: The Man and His Works uses the critical essay format to assess Chinua Achebe as a person, a writer and the inaugurator of the literary tradition of cultural nationalism. It progressively and thematically analyses his novels and works, comparing them with those of African literary and cultural groundbreakers in the Diaspora, including the pioneering works of Olaudah Equiano and Zora Neale Hurston The book is a unique and fresh addition to the body of writings on Africa's most respected novelist, widely acclaimed as the father of modern African literature, and generally believed to be one of the 100 most important writers of the 20th and 21st centuries. A must read ____________________ Dr. Rose Ure Mezu was born in Nigeria and studied in Port-Harcourt, (Nigeria), Abidjan, (Cote d'Ivoire ), Buffalo (New York) and Paris (France) where she graduated with a Diplome d'Etudes from the Sorbonne. She obtained a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature in 1993, specializing in Francophone and Anglo-phone Feminist Literature. She had been a Commissioner for Social Welfare in Imo State, Nigeria, and is currently an Associate Professor of English, Women Studies and Comparative Literature at Morgan State University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. She is also the founder and Co-ordinator of WADS: Black Creativity & the State of the Race, which organizes international and interdisciplinary conferences on Africa and the Diaspora. A widely published scholar, her books include Women in Chains: Abandonment in Love Relationships in the Fiction of Selected West African Writers (1994), Songs of the Hearth (1993), Homage to my People (2004), A History of Africana Women's Literature (2004), and with Dr S. Okechukwu Mezu, Black Nationalists: Reconsidering Du Bois, Garvey, Booker T. & Nkrumah (1999)."
Literature of Africa by
As more works of African Literature are being incorporated into the Language Arts and Cultural Studies curriculum, it becomes increasingly important to offer students and educators a meaningful context in which to explore these works. As part of Greenwood's Literature as Windows to World Culture series, this volume introduces readers to the cultural concerns of 10 of Africa's most reknowned writers. Written in clear accessible language, close analysis is given for 14 novels, including Achebe's Things Fall Apart, and Paton's Cry the Beloved Country, chosen because of their literary importance and the frequency with which they are assigned. The ten analysis chapters each begin with a brief account of the authors' lives and their writing careers, noting especially the experiences and influences which have shaped their writing. Following this section is a major essay on their most prominent and best known work. Discussion of the historical and cultural issues in the novels is integrated into the literary commentary. Students will gain not a deeper appreciation for the fiction, but a more solid understanding of the core historical issues and cultural concerns that influence and shape the writing. The Introduction outlines the general history and development of Sub-Saharan African Literature. The colonial experiences and postcolonial struggles, the principal subject matter of African writers, differs from region to region. The geographic organization of this guide into West, East and South Africa reflects these different perspectives. Each section ends with a list of critical works that will assist readers and researchers further their understanding of the authors and their works. Short biographical sketches on 80 authors are also provided to expand readers' contact with African literature. The index assists users in identifying not only title and authors but also major themes and topics that the writings reveal.
The Novel and the Globalization of Culture by
Bringing together canonical European authors with authors from the Third World, this book analyzes the emergence of the modern global novel, and the way it mirrors the underlying process of cultural globalization. Through detailed readings of Stendhal, Hardy, Conrad, Achebe, and Vargas Llosa, this study reveals how the spread of Western modernity--materially and culturally--has been shadowed by the destruction of traditional societies. These novels focus on the individual tragedies of those who represent pre-modern ways of life; in the process, offering a corrective to Hegel's abstruse philosophy of history. From rural Victorian England to the Malay Archipelago, and from the Igbo heartland in Africa to the backlands of Brazil, a global narrative unfolds, one where the forces of modernization clash with the defenders of traditional society. Moses contributes to the ongoing debate on Alexandre Koj#65533;ve and the "end of history", while, at the same time, moving beyond sterile oppositions--canonical versus non-canonical works, formal literary criticism versus political/historical critique. With its new conceptualization of modernity and globalization, this book will interest the literary scholar, cultural critic, social scientist, and political theorist.
Relocating Agency: Modernity and African Letters by
A postmodernist metacritical look at theories of African literature.
Remembering a Legend: Chinua Achebe: Studies by
Remembering a Legend: Chinua Achebe recaptures for the literary world the inimitable legacies of Chinua Achebe (1930-2013), Africa's leading novelist and literary philosopher of the 20th century. It addresses the questions of Achebe's role in establishing the African art of the novel, his theories and standards for the criticism of African writing. The volume articulates unequivocally how Achebe provided the message and pioneered a confident voice to African writers to express the message with audacity; repudiate without equivocation, any form of distortions of African past and present realities. The essays remind the reader how Achebe brought to the field of world literature new perspectives and vitality that distinguished the African art of storytelling from imaginative creatives elsewhere. This volume presents Achebe's articulation of the traditional and modern in African narrative techniques; linking the skills of the traditional artist (oral performer) to those of the modern writer; how the modern African creative artist can embellish his/her art with oral resources such as folktales, proverbs, sayings, festivals, songs, riddles, and myths. Chinua Achebe's unique distinctions as a novelist lie in the areas of informed vision and artistic integrity. His greatest legacy to 20th century world literature probably is his pioneer role in the 'nativization' and ingenious use of the English language. The exceptional genius of Achebe touched many traditional and cultural bases in his fiction, essays, and memoirs. The critical responses to Achebe's works in this book, address adequately almost every aspect of his creative imagination and craftsmanship. The reader will find in this convenient volume several seminal studies by two eminent scholars of Achebe's intriguing genius that authenticate him as among the best literary craftsmen of the 20th century and undeniably Africa's best.
Satire and the Postcolonial Novel: V.S. Naipaul, Chinua Achebe, Salman Rushdie by
Satire plays a prominent and often controversial role in postcolonial fiction. Satire and the Postcolonial Novel offers the first study of this topic, employing the insights of postcolonial comparative theories to revisit Western formulations of "satire" and the "satiric."
Shaken Wisdom: Irony and Meaning in Postcolonial African Fiction by
In her focus on irony and meaning in postcolonial African fiction, Gloria Nne Onyeoziri refers to an internal subversion of the discourse of the wise and the powerful, a practice that has played multiple roles in the circulation of knowledge, authority, and opinion within African communities; in the interpretation of colonial and postcolonial experience; and in the ongoing resistance to tyrannies in African societies. But irony is always reversible and may be used to question the oppressed as well as the oppressor, shaking all presumptions of wisdom. Although the author cites numerous African writers, she selects six works by Chinua Achebe, Ahmadou Kourouma, and Calixthe Beyala for her primary analysis. Modern Language Initiative
Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe by
Introductory essays reflect on Achebe's pioneering achievement and evaluate the enduring, international popularity of Things Fall Apart. Also included is a comparison of Things Fall Apart to major literary works within the western canon, such as the Odyssey and the Iliad. Other essays discuss the depiction of gender, the presentation of cultural violence, and the portrayal of colonization within the novel.