Description: Imagined States examines representations of the law in British and Nigerian high-brow, middle-brow and popular fiction and journalism. Drawing on a rich range of examples, the book focuses on the imaginative role that the state of exception played in the application of indirect rule during British colonialism and in the legal machinations of the postcolonial state. It reads works by Chinua Achebe, Joyce Cary, Cyprian Ekwensi and Edgar Wallace, together with a range of Nigerian market literature and journalism.
Brief description: Katherine Isobel Baxter is Reader in English Literature at Northumbria University. She is the author of 'Joseph Conrad and the Swan Song of Romance' (2010) and the co-editor of 'The Edinburgh Companion to the First World War and the Arts' (Edinburgh University Press, 2017), 'Conrad and Language' (Edinburgh University Press, 2016) and 'Joseph Conrad and the Performing Arts' (2009). She is general editor of the journal 'English'.
Review Quotes: The volume is a remarkable contribution, not just to West African literature, but to legal theory itself and the role that literature plays in enacting and codifying law.--J. A. Bernstein "Joseph Conrad Today"