Description: In African Literature in the World, Simon Gikandi asks: Why do debates on language continue to inform and haunt African writing? What happened when writing replaced orality as the primary form of creative expression? When, how, and why did the novel come to occupy such a dominant role in African literary history? This is a comprehensive study of the histories and theories of African literature in the twentieth century and shows how African writers adopted and transformed the English language and its traditions to account for African identities and experiences. Concerned with writing and reading as forms of mediation, Gikandi provides examples of how imaginative works shaped the public sphere in Africa in relation to decolonization and the politics of language. He explores how the emergence of a modern tradition of African writing has generated new forms of criticism in relation to the form of the novel, modernity, and modernism.
Brief description: Simon Gikandi is Class of 1943 University Professor of English at Princeton University. He is a scholar of the literatures of Africa and its diasporas, and postcolonial criticism, and the author of many award-winning books including Slavery and the Culture of Taste (2011), winner of the James Russell Lowell Award.
Review Quotes: 'This indispensable volume by a preeminent scholar offers fresh ways to think about African writing and literary criticism in the context of world literature. Always alert to the global locations of authors, readers, scholars, and ideas, Simon Gikandi examines the shifting histories of literary genres, questions the limits of postcolonial theory, and reflects on the role of intellectuals in African literary criticism. In the process, he reimagines colonial identity and modernity, and rethinks debates about the language of African literature. The intellectual honesty of this volume rubs off on readers as Gikandi blends cultural history with theory, personal reflections, and close readings.' Stephanie Newell, George M. Bodman Professor of English