Spheres Public and Private.
Western Genres in African Literature.
Published in September 2011
Book
Hardback
722 pages
978-90-420-3375-7 (ISBN)
Description
The coverage displayed here is predominantly on sub-Saharan literary production, and with a - perhaps systemic - focus on important aspects of political history and socio-political structures (including marxian analyses of the 'public sphere') and such crucial arenas as religious discipline, the tension between tradition and modernity, ecological awareness, family, and gender.
Most of the discussions are traditionally content-oriented, but there are at least two essays (on Soyinka's Ake and on Amma Darko's The Housemaid) that attempt to come to grips narratologically with the medium of prose fiction itself. A quartet of essays with a more general purview - including a refreshing demontage of exclusive obeisance to (Western) ecriture - is followed by a section on poets, some canonical, others emergent: Ogaga Ifowodo, Jack Mapanje, Olu Oguibe, Tanure Ojaide, Okot p'Bitek, Wole Soyinka, Lade Wosornu. Essays on fiction cover general topics (women's fiction; political writing in Nigeria; the nightmare of Biafra), and landmark texts both anglophone (Chinua Achebe, Amma Darko, Festus Iyayi, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Wole Soyinka), francophone (Mariama Ba, Mongo Beti, and Ousmane Sembene), and - a novum for Matatu - hispanophone (Donato Ndongo). The theatre section has essays on Ama Ata Aidoo, Zakes Mda, Anne Tanyi-Tang, Soyinka, and Ahmed Yerima, as well as Ngugi and Mugo.
We are especially pleased to be able to offer accomplished original poetry, short stories, and a complete drama text. Four comprehensive essay-reviews (on literary criticism, cinema, graphic art, and traditional African society) round out this issue.
Most of the discussions are traditionally content-oriented, but there are at least two essays (on Soyinka's Ake and on Amma Darko's The Housemaid) that attempt to come to grips narratologically with the medium of prose fiction itself. A quartet of essays with a more general purview - including a refreshing demontage of exclusive obeisance to (Western) ecriture - is followed by a section on poets, some canonical, others emergent: Ogaga Ifowodo, Jack Mapanje, Olu Oguibe, Tanure Ojaide, Okot p'Bitek, Wole Soyinka, Lade Wosornu. Essays on fiction cover general topics (women's fiction; political writing in Nigeria; the nightmare of Biafra), and landmark texts both anglophone (Chinua Achebe, Amma Darko, Festus Iyayi, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Wole Soyinka), francophone (Mariama Ba, Mongo Beti, and Ousmane Sembene), and - a novum for Matatu - hispanophone (Donato Ndongo). The theatre section has essays on Ama Ata Aidoo, Zakes Mda, Anne Tanyi-Tang, Soyinka, and Ahmed Yerima, as well as Ngugi and Mugo.
We are especially pleased to be able to offer accomplished original poetry, short stories, and a complete drama text. Four comprehensive essay-reviews (on literary criticism, cinema, graphic art, and traditional African society) round out this issue.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Leiden
Netherlands
Publishing group
Brill
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 155 mm
Thickness: 40 mm
Weight
1193 gr
ISBN-13
978-90-420-3375-7 (9789042033757)
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Contributors: Arinpe Adejumo, Gordon Senanu Kwame Adika, Sola Afolayan, Jude Agho, Augustine H. Asaah, Babatunde Ayeleru, Ayodele Bamidele, Joanna Boampong, Cristina Boscolo, Reuben Chirambo, Ademola O. Dasylva, Kola Eke, Sule E. Egya, Mabel I.E. Evwierhoma, Nelson Olabanji Fashina, Ayo Kehinde, Edgar O. Lake, Charles Marfo, Busuyi Mekusi, Sam Raiti Mtamba, Emmanuel N. Ngwang, Joseph Nsiah, Izuu Nwankwo, Akin Odebunmi, Ode Ogede, Ogaga Okuyade, K.K. Olaniyan, Senayon Olaoluwa, Masood Ashraf Raja, Wumi Raji, Brian C. Smithson, Nick Mdika Tembo, Francoise Ugochukwu, Kenneth Usongo, Tracie Utoh-Ezeajugh, Lifongo Vetinde, Tracey Watts, Udu Yakubu.
Content
Table of Contents
The Editor: Prefatory Note
Overviews
Wumi Raji: Imagined Transformation: Notes on a Postcolonialism of African Literature
Sola Afolayan: African Literature: A Showcase for Africa's Leadership Problems
Nelson O. Fashina: Lit-Orature Development, World Peace, and the Challenges of Literary Theory/Criticism
Arinpe Adejumo: Thematization and Perspectivization of Conflict in Selected Yorùbá Literary Genres
Poetry
Udu Yakubu: Paths of Revolutionary Contestation: Wole Soyinka's Poetry and the Dialectic of Liberal Humanism
Sule E. Egya: The Aesthetic of Rage in Recent Nigerian Poetry in English: Olu Oguibe and Ogaga Ifowodo
Ogaga Okuyade: The Cumulative Neglect of Collective Responsibility: Postcoloniality, Ecology and the Niger Deltascape in the Poetry of Tanure Ojaide
Reuben Makayiko Chirambo: "Vipers Who Minute Our Twitches": Psychopaths That Served Banda's Malawian Dictatorship in Jack Mapanje's Prison Poetry
Gordon S.K. Adisa: Bringing Hinduism to Bear on the Ghanaian Situation: Ladé Wosornu's Artistry as a Call for Spiritual Renewal
Kenneth Usongo: Cultural Identity and Literature: A Study of Okot p'Bitek's Song of Lawino
Fiction
Augustine H. Asaah: Towards the Retrieval of the Lost Voice: Contestation and Reclamation of Discourse in Half a Century of African Women's Europhone Fiction
Ayo Kehinde: Rulers Against Writers, Writers Against Rulers: The Failed Promise of the Public Sphere in Postcolonial Nigerian Fiction
Françoise Ugochukwu: A Lingering Nightmare: Achebe, Ofoegbu, and Adichie on Biafra
Babatunde Ayeleru: Where is the Text? Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart
Akin Odebunmi & K.K. Olaniyan: Perspectivization in Fiction: A Deictic Study of Wole Soyinka's Aké
Jude Agho & Ayodele Bamidele: On the Threshold of Combat Poetics: The Novels of Festus Iyayi
Senayon Olaoluwa: Contentious Absolutism: The Public Sphere and the Imperative of Circumvention in Ngugi's Wizard of the Crow
Nick Mdika Tembo: Subversion and the Carnivalesque: Images of Resistance in Ngugi wa Thiong'o's Wizard of the Crow
Joseph Nsiah & Charles Marfo: What's In a Title? A Reading of Amma Darko's The Housemaid
Tracey Watts: The Problems of Perspective in Mongo Beti's The Poor Christ of Bomba
Ode Ogede: Epistolarity as Ethnography of Rebellion (or Alienation): Western Education and Its After-Effects on the Female Subject in Mariama Bâ's So Long a Letter
Masood Ashraf Raja: Ousmane Sembène's God's Bits of Wood: The Anatomy of a Strike and the Ideologeme of Solidarity
Lifongo Vetinde: Sex, Power, and Community in Ousmane Sembène's Véhi-Ciosane
Joanna Boampong: Contesting the Religious Civilizing Mission of Empire in Hispanophone African Literature
Theatre
Mabel I.E. Evwierhoma: Pastoral Verbal Performance and Visual Aesthetics: Brother Jero's Cape as Sign
Wumi Raji: "Not a girl to meet every day": Feminist Identity Transformation in Ama Ata Aidoo's Anowa
Ademola O. Dasylva: Playing With History, Playing With Words: Ngugi and Mugo's The Trial of Dedan Kimathi
Kola Eke: The 'Inside' Wife and the 'Outside' Wives in Ahmed Yerima's The Sisters
Emmanuel N. Ngwang: Arrah's Existential Dilemma: A Study of Anne Tanyi-Tang's Arrah
Busuyi Mekusi: Sameness Within Difference: Blurring 'Self' and 'Other' - Liminality in Zakes Mda's The Bells of Amersfoort
Creative Writing
Sam Raiti Mtamba: Areas of Shade, Areas of Darkness: Poems and Stories
Edgar Lake: Tribute to Salih
Tracie Utoh-Ezeajugh: Out of the Masks - A Play
Reviews
Ayo Kehinde: A Literary Critic's Appraisal
Brian C. Smithson: An Overlooked Medium
Cristina Boscolo: Rekindling Memory
Izuu Nwankwo: An Alternative Cinema for the People
Books Received
Biographical Notes
Notes for Contributors