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This study contextualizes magical realism within current debates and theories of postcoloniality and examines the fiction of three of its West African pioneers: Syl Cheney-Coker of Sierra Leone, Ben Okri of Nigeria and Kojo Laing of Ghana. Brenda Cooper explores the distinct elements of the genre in a West African context, and in relation to:
* a range of global expressions of magical realism, from the work of Gabriel Garcia Marquez to that of Salman Rushdie
* wider contemporary trends in African writing, with particular attention to how the realism of authors such as Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka has been connected with nationalist agendas.
This is a fascinating and important work for all those working on African literature, magical realism, or postcoloniality. ... Read more

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This 1973 text was the first detailed study of that phenomenon of the African literary scene, Onitsha market literature. Pen names and pamphlet titles adopted by Onitsha authors have often been the subject of amused comment, but it took a long time for Onitsha writing to be recognised for what it is: a genuinely popular literature, unique on Africa, written in English by Africans for an exclusively African audience. What are the origins of this literature? Why did it start in Onitsha? Why do certain themes recur? Where have the writer acquired their unconventional attitudes to love, marriage, sex? What influences have shaped the robust and unorthodox language they use? Dr Obiechina answers these questions and asks what we can learn from the Onitsha authors about social change in Nigeria - how do they attempt to reconcile the traditional rural community and the aggressive individualistic urban society with alien values? ... Read more

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"Tell me a story," says a little girl to her grandfather. So begins this one-of-a-kind look at the history of African American literature. from the first slave narratives and the poetry of Phillis Wheatley, through Langston Hughes and Richard Wright, to Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou, Sweet Words So Brave puts the literature in the context of American history and brings the lives, the times, and the extraordinary literary accomplishments of African American writers vividly to life. This is a book to cherish and share. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

WHAT'S UP WITH THAT?
Sweet Words So Brave... what's up with that?The title would more appropriately read- Listen little girl and I'll tell you a story.
An abbreviated history ofBlack folk in America is given.Since the book is only 20+ pages long, you know not much history can be told in those few pages.However, what is shown is very good.

I am most impressed with the fact that this book gives a seriouspicture of Black people in America.The Ilustrator, Jerry Butler,needs to produce books on his own as his pictures make the book.Every picture is packed with so much reality I thought I saw myself on one of those pages. Every house on the planet should read this book and dust-off a place on the bookshelf for this book. ... Read more

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‘A useful starting point.... It is the breadth of the coverage that makes the Encyclopedia of African Literature stand out.’ – Booklist/RBB

‘[A] comprehensive work for general readers.... Highly recommended.' –Pennsylvania School Librarians Association Best Reference Titles

The most comprehensive reference work on African literature to date, this easy-to-use book contains over 600 alphabetically arranged entries that cover major and less established African authors and texts, criticism and theory, and African Literature’s development as a field of scholarship.

Now available in paperback, this volume is an essential resource for students of African literature and a useful tool for those considering African culture across the fields of Literary Studies, African Studies, Anthropology, Cultural Studies and Postcolonial Studies.

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Customer Reviews (2)

My, my, my, what an excellent book.
Wow! I could not believe how remarkably crispy this book was. I mean the pages were just crisp with crispness. You know how when sometimes you're reading a book and you think to yourself "Dam! This book is crispy!"? Well, when you read this book, it will make you think that. Are you ready to ascend to new levels of crispiness? Then reading this handsome man's audacious study of the crisp. I found particularly interesting the area where he compares Lacan's mirror stage to Ralph Ellison's novel: "THE CRISP FACTOR". What a tight, irresistable thriller!

Studies the role and purpose of satire as a literary genre
Darryl Dickson-Carr's African American Satire is recommended for college-level audiences; this studies the role and purpose of satire as a literary genre in African-American writings. Afro-American literature and the history of satire are concurrently studied in chapters which argue that major works by Hughes, Ellison and other should be viewed as satires in order to fully appreciate their meaning. ... Read more

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The 1780s and 1790s were a critical era for communities of color in the new United States of America. Even Thomas Jefferson observed that in the aftermath of the American Revolution, "the spirit of the master is abating, that of the slave rising from the dust." This book explores the means by which the very first Black and Indian authors rose up to transform their communities and the course of American literary history. It argues that the origins of modern African-American and American Indian literatures emerged at the revolutionary crossroads of religion and racial formation as early Black and Indian authors reinvented American evangelicalism and created new postslavery communities, new categories of racial identification, and new literary traditions.

While shedding fresh light on the pioneering figures of African-American and Native American cultural history--including Samson Occom, Prince Hall, Richard Allen, Absalom Jones, and John Marrant--this work also explores a powerful set of little-known Black and Indian sermons, narratives, journals, and hymns. Chronicling the early American communities of color from the separatist Christian Indian settlement in upstate New York to the first African Lodge of Freemasons in Boston, it shows how eighteenth-century Black and Indian writers forever shaped the American experience of race and religion. American Lazarus offers a bold new vision of a foundational moment in American literature. It reveals the depth of early Black and Indian intellectual history and reassesses the political, literary, and cultural powers of religion in America. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Great Book in Literature and Religion
American Lazarus is the story of how African American and Native American writers forged new tools to re-create their identities. In spite of slavery and subjugation, men like Samson Occom, John Marrant, Richard Allen, and Prince Hall endeavored to raise their people from civic death. This book is powerful. It is beautifully written; it sheds new light on traditions of resistance in American letters; and it shows that the theme of Lazarus (the biblical story where Jesus raises his friend from the dead) was an overarching conception for peoples of color just as the Exodus story was. Incredible history; amazing literary analysis. American Lazarus is a triumph.

An incredible story
My minister mentioned this book in a recent sermon. As a Christian living in the 21st Century, I realize that there is so much that I can take for granted. The trials and tribulations and triumphs that people like Samson Occom and John Marrant went through were inspiring to say the least. I had no idea that one of America's first hymnals was compiled by a Native American, nor did I discover until reading this book how much American Christianity is so entwined in Black and Indian struggles. I learned so much from this book. I'm not a reader of literature, but now I want to find out more about these people. I can say that it's made me a better Christian. I'm so grateful to these American saints. Thank you, Joanna Brooks, for opening my eyes.

Intellectual work and discovery at its best
With AMERICAN LAZARUS, Brooks recovers, or might I say, revives either long-forgotten or oft-misunderstood religious writings by eighteenth-century African Americans and Native Americans.And the story she tells through their works is as relevant in the 21st century as it was during theirs: God takes sides, and God's side is with the poor, the enslaved, the colonized.And these writers, like Brooks, ask: which side are you on?AMERICAN LAZARUS shows us the debt we owe to these innovative ancestors of color--politically, culturally, spiritually.And for that, we are indebted to Brooks as well. ... Read more

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'Despite the overwhelming reality of economic decline; despite unimaginable poverty; despite wars, malnutrition, disease and political instability, African cultural productivity grows apace: popular literatures, oral narrative and poetry, dance, drama, music and visual art all thrive.' - Kwame Anthony Appiah, In My Father's House This collection of essays examines the way in which African popular culture has moved centre stage since the early 1980s. The emphasis is on the verbal rather than the visual, and topics covered include the oral tradition, and women in popular culture. KARIN BARBER is Professor of African Cultural Anthropology at the University of Birmingham Published in association with the International African Institute North America: Indiana University Press ... Read more

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discussing pop fiction
I can't say that I picked this book out myself... I'm reading for my anthropology class on pop fiction adn politics, nonetheless it has served as a wonderful resource. The articles span several subjects, countries, and view points. Particularly excelent is Karen Barber's introduction which serves as an excelent starting point for the study of pop-culture in the setting of any region. ... Read more

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In today's interconnected and global society, socially responsive learning is an integral part of educational excellence. This book encourages socially responsive learning by showing you how to use traditional African folk tales and quality children's books, young adult novels, classic literature, and film media about Africa as the mode for examining diversity, equity, and human rights issues in high school and university classrooms.

Each Novel Guide chapter in this unique and remarkable resource offers the following features to provoke critical thinking and challenge students to become socially responsive learners:

An overview of the novels and activities how those activities are aligned with standards
An exploration of each novel's social and historical context
About the author descriptions and plot summaries
Making Connections question sets
A critical exploration of themes
Teacher Talk questioning strategies
Cross-curricular activities
A Making-A-Difference Project

The literature explored in this book helps students and teachers to expand not only their concept of global issues and awareness of what is at stake when various kinds of injustice are ignored but also how they may become activists on the global scene, citizens who can make a positive difference in the world.

The International Reading Association is the world's premier organization of literacy professionals. Our titles promote reading by providing professional development to continuously advance the quality of literacy instruction and research.

Research-based, classroom-tested, and peer-reviewed, IRA titles are among the highest quality tools that help literacy professionals do their jobs better.

Some of the many areas we publish in include:

-Comprehension
-Response To Intervention/Struggling Readers
-Early Literacy
-Adolescent Literacy
-Assessment
-Literacy Coaching
-Research And Policy ... Read more

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New Yorker James Baldwin once declared that a black man can look at a map of the United States, contemplate the area south of the Mason-Dixon Line, and thus Ascare himself to death. In The Scary Mason-Dixon Line, renowned literary scholar Trudier Harris explores why black writers, whether born in Mississippi, New York, or elsewhere have consistently both loved and hated the South. Harris explains that, for these authors the South represents not so much a place or even a culture as a rite of passage. Not one of them can consider himself or herself a true African American writer without confronting the idea of the South in a decisive way.

Harris considers native born black southerners Raymond Andrews, Ernest J. Gaines, Edward P. Jones, Tayari Jones, Yusef Komunyakaa, Randall Kenan, and Phyllis Alesia Perry, and nonsouthern writers James Baldwin, Sherley Anne Williams, and Octavia E. Butler. The works Harris examines date from Baldwin's Blues for Mr. Charlie (1964) to Edward P. Jones's The Known World (2003). By including Komunyakaa's poems and Baldwin's play, as well as male and female authors, Harris demonstrates that the writers' preoccupation with the South cuts across lines of genre and gender.

Whether their writings focus on slavery, migration from the South to the North, or violence on southern soil, and whether they celebrate the triumph of black southern heritage over repression or castigate the South for its horrible treatment of blacks, these authors cannot escape the call of the South. Indeed, Harris asserts that creative engagement with the South represents a defining characteristic of African American writing.

A singular work by one of the foremost literary scholars writing today, The Scary Mason-Dixon Line superbly demonstrates how history and memory continue to figure powerfully in African American literary creativity.

... Read more

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This is the first comprehensive survey of popular theatre in sub-Saharan Africa. ... Read more

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Through a series of essays that explore the forms, themes, genres, historical contexts, major authors, and latest critical approaches, A Companion to African American Literature presents a comprehensive chronological overview of African American literature from the eighteenth century to the modern day

• Examines African American literature from its earliest origins, through the rise of antislavery literature in the decades leading into the Civil War, to the modern development of contemporary African American cultural media, literary aesthetics, and political ideologies
• Addresses the latest critical and scholarly approaches to African American literature
• Features essays by leading established literary scholars as well as newer voices

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West African Literatures provides students with fresh, in-depth perspectives on the key debates in the field. The aim of this book is not to provide an authoritative, encyclopedic account, but to consider a selection of the region's literatures in relation to prevailing discussions about literature and postcolonialism. ... Read more

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Complete textual edition and English translations
The following is taken from the publisher's catalogue:W. G. Lambert'sclassic work has served students of Akkadian literature over the years as auseful sourcebook and as a model publication for studying a particularcorpus of cuneiform literature. Contents: The Development of Thought andLiterature in Ancient Mesopotamia The Poem of the RighteousSufferer--Ludlul bel nemeqi The Babylonian Theodicy Precepts andAdmonitions--Instructions of Shuruppak, Counsels of Wisdom, Counsels of aPessimist, Advice to a Prince, Varia Preceptive Hymns--Hymn to Ninurta, TheShamash Hymn The Dialogue of Pessimism Fables or Contest Literature--TheTamarisk and the Palm, The Fable of the Willow, Nisaba and Wheat, The Oxand the Horse, The Fable of the Fox, The Fable of the Riding-donkey, VariaPopular Sayings Proverbs In addition to providing the text and translationof the above literature, the author provides critical and philologicalnotes and meticulous hand copies of the texts under discussion. Variousindexes complete the volume. 1996 (reprint of 1960 ed.). Pp. xix + 359 + 75plates. ... Read more

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There is hardly a debate that is more controversial than the African discourse on feminism. Anti-feminist positions are widespread in Africa. On the one hand, there are those who reject feminist ideas fundamentally.Most of their arguments do injustice to the heterogeneity of feminism and do not really threaten the existence of feminism in Africa. On the other hand, there are the critical positions of those who sympathize with feminist ideas, but do not feel at home with Western feminism. Their central reproach is that feminism does not see beyond Western societies, and hence ignores or marginalizes the specific problems of African women. Some radical and Marxist feminists are an exception to the rule. They, however, thus the reproach, go to the opposite extreme by presuming to be able to speak in the name of all women, without, however, having really informed themselves about the situation and the problems of women in other parts of the world. As a consequence, they base their assessment of the situation and the emancipatory ideas of African women and women’s movements on their own views and experiences.

In her book, Susan Arndt enters this important debate by attempting to discuss and define the nature of African feminism and African-feminist literatures. Taking into account African-feminist literatures’ heterogeneity as well, she uses a classification model to discuss and group it. Arndt distinguishes three main currents of feminism: reformist, transformative and radical African-feminist literatures. The workability of this classification model is put to the test, illustrated, and exemplified with interpretations of selected African-feminist prose texts by African women writers of different regional, religious and generational backgrounds: Grace Ogot, Ifeoma Okoye, Flora Nwapa, Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo, Mariama Bâ, Buchi Emecheta, Bessie Head, Pat Ngurukie, Nawal El Saadawi and Calixthe Beyala. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Powerful African Women
As someone who has been working in Africa for the past 15 years, I am impressed by the informed and eloquent voices that have been assembled by the editors of African Women Writing Resistance.Women's empowerment is a complex and dynamic subject.Unlike many books and agency reports that present dry and academic findings, the editors here have attracted a wide range of authentic and compelling voices. A riveting anthology.

Richard Donovan
Founding Director
National Center for Educational Alliances

African Women Writing Resistance
What I love most about this wonderfully unique collection is its' mix of stories, poems, memoirs, interviews, and even a play.The editors have provided an introduction and overview for each of the seven sections, a valuable list of online resources as well as information about the individual writers and an extensive bibliography of works by living African women writers.

Each section is filled with powerful stories.Some of my favorites are:"The Story of Faith" by Mamie Kabu (a portrait of a privileged university woman whose life choices have unexpected consequences); "The Battle of the Words" by Marame Gueye (a delightful competition from the Wolof Society between the first wife and the new wife, their supporters and the contemporary challenges of polygamy); "Ngomwa" by Ellen Mulenga Banda-Aaku (an account of unusual coping skills needed for dealing with the unacceptable problem of a childless marriage); and "Slow Poison" by Makuchi(the story of a mother's tragic loss of her son to AIDS and the shattering revelation of how relationships within the community are impacted by this dreadful disease).

The poetry in this collection is breath-taking.Abena P.A. Busia's poems: " A Song in Seven Stanzas for Our Granddaughters" and "Liberation" bring us from the "Tradition and the remembrance of things past..." to a celebration of women and "...that fire within us..."Zindzi Bedu's "Lovesung for a Father" and Ann Kithaka's "Tell Me Why, Two Poems" are so powerful they will sear your heart and leave an enduring mark.

The anthology also includes:a report of environmental conflicts with western oil companies in Nigeria; an Egyptian doctor's appeal for the abolition of female and male circumcision or cutting; a first person narrative of an eight year old child soldier from Uganda; as well as reflections of African women living beyond the borders of their continent.

I was captivated by the combination of myth, superstitions, ethnic rivalry, and an amazing true life story in the opening chapter, "Engaging with Traditions."Even though these are decidedly African stories and experiences, they reminded me of the many happy hours I spent listening to my Scandinavian grandmothers tell about their lives, families, and emigration difficulties.

This book will appeal not only to those who enjoy reading about Africa but to anyone who enjoys stories about personal challenges, family and cultural tensions, social conflict, and issues of emigration and/or exile.I hope you will love it as much as I did. ... Read more

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"Ghananian Literature is a scholarly and very valuable collection surveying the Ghanian literatures and their critical reception until the present decade." World Literature Today ... Read more

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The Columbia Guide to East African Literature in English Since 1945 challenges the conventional belief that the English-language literary traditions of East Africa are restricted to the former British colonies of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. Instead, these traditions stretch far into such neighboring countries as Somalia and Ethiopia.

Simon Gikandi and Evan Mwangi assemble a truly inclusive list of major writers and trends. They begin with a chronology of key historical events and an overview of the emergence and transformation of literary culture in the region. Then they provide an alphabetical list of major writers and brief descriptions of their concerns and achievements.

Some of the writers discussed include the Kenyan novelists Grace Ogot and Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Ugandan poet and essayist Taban Lo Liyong, Ethiopian playwright and poet Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin, Tanzanian novelist and diplomat Peter Palangyo, Ethiopian novelist Berhane Mariam Sahle-Sellassie, and the novelist M. G. Vassanji, who portrays the Indian diaspora in Africa, Europe, and North America.

Separate entries within this list describe thematic concerns, such as colonialism, decolonization, the black aesthetic, and the language question; the growth of genres like autobiography and popular literature; important movements like cultural nationalism and feminism; and the impact of major forces such as AIDS/HIV, Christian missions, and urbanization.

Comprehensive and richly detailed, this guide offers a fresh perspective on the role of East Africa in the development of African and world literature in English and a new understanding of the historical, cultural, and geopolitical boundaries of the region.