Land and Nationalism in Fictions from Southern Africa

Land and Nationalism in Fictions from Southern Africa PDF Author: James Graham
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135844003
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
In this volume, Graham investigates the relation between land and nationalism in South African and Zimbabwean fiction from the 1960s to the present. This comparative study, the first of its kind, discusses a wide range of writing against a backdrop of regional decolonization, including novels by the prize-winning authors J.M Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer, Bessie Head, Chenjerai Hove, and Yvonne Vera. By employing a range of critical perspectives—cultural materialist, feminist and ecocritical—this book offers new ways of thinking about the relationship between literature, politics and the environment in Southern Africa. The return of land has been central to the material and cultural struggles for decolonization in Southern Africa, yet between the advent of democracy in Zimbabwe (1980) and South Africa (1994) and Zimbabwe’s decision to fast-track land redistribution in 2000, it has been limited land reform rather than widespread land redistribution that has prevailed. During this period nationalist discourses of reconciliation and economic development replaced those of revolution and decolonization. This book develops a critique of both forms of nationalistic narrative by focusing on how different and often opposing idea of land and nation are reflected, refracted and even refused in the fictions.

Land and Nationalism in Fictions from Southern Africa

Land and Nationalism in Fictions from Southern Africa PDF Author: James Graham
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135844003
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 396

Get Book

Book Description
In this volume, Graham investigates the relation between land and nationalism in South African and Zimbabwean fiction from the 1960s to the present. This comparative study, the first of its kind, discusses a wide range of writing against a backdrop of regional decolonization, including novels by the prize-winning authors J.M Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer, Bessie Head, Chenjerai Hove, and Yvonne Vera. By employing a range of critical perspectives—cultural materialist, feminist and ecocritical—this book offers new ways of thinking about the relationship between literature, politics and the environment in Southern Africa. The return of land has been central to the material and cultural struggles for decolonization in Southern Africa, yet between the advent of democracy in Zimbabwe (1980) and South Africa (1994) and Zimbabwe’s decision to fast-track land redistribution in 2000, it has been limited land reform rather than widespread land redistribution that has prevailed. During this period nationalist discourses of reconciliation and economic development replaced those of revolution and decolonization. This book develops a critique of both forms of nationalistic narrative by focusing on how different and often opposing idea of land and nation are reflected, refracted and even refused in the fictions.

Text, Theory, Space

Text, Theory, Space PDF Author: Kate Darian-Smith
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134804555
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
Text, Theory, Space is a landmark in post-colonial criticism and theory. Focusing on two white settler societies, South Africa and Australia, the contributors investigate the meaning of 'the South' as an aesthetic, political, geographical and cultural space. Drawing upon a wide range of disciplines which include literature, history, urban and cultural geography, politics and anthropology, the contributors examine crucial issues including: * defining what 'the South' encompasses * investigating ideas of space, history, land and landscape * claiming, naming and possessing land * national and personal boundaries * questions of race, gender and nationalism

Land and Nationalism in Fictions from Southern Africa

Land and Nationalism in Fictions from Southern Africa PDF Author: James Graham
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135844011
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
By employing a range of critical perspectives—cultural materialist, feminist and ecocritical— Graham investigates the relation between land and nationalism in South African and Zimbabwean fiction from the 1960s to the present. This study discusses a wide range of writing including novels by Coetzee, Gordimer, Head, Hove, and Vera.

Land, Freedom and Fiction

Land, Freedom and Fiction PDF Author: David Maughan Brown
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN: 1786990113
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 470

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Book Description
This now classic work examines the contrasting ways in which the Mau Mau struggle for land and independence in Kenya was mirrored, and usually distorted, by successive generations of English and white Kenyan authors, as well as by indigenous Kenyan novelists. Against the turbulent background of the Mau Mau Uprising, Dr Maughan-Brown explores the relationship between history, literary creation and the myths that societies cultivate. Spanning the breadth of colonial and post-colonial African literature, his subjects range from the colonialist authors Robert Ruark and Elspeth Huxley to the post-independence novels of Meja Mwangi and Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Maughan-Brown's book is invaluable on many levels. He presents a concise account of the uprising and its place in Kenyan identity, and significantly increases our understanding of settler attitudes and the role of literature within colonial ideology. Land, Freedom and Fiction succeeds in showing the subtle insights a materialist approach can bring to the study of literature, ideology and society.

The Frightened Land

The Frightened Land PDF Author: Jennifer Beningfield
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134213549
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
An investigation into the spatial politics of separation and division in South Africa, principally during the apartheid years, and the effects of these physical and conceptual barriers on the land. In contrast to the weight of literature focusing on post-apartheid South Africa, the focus of this book includes the spatial, political and cultural landscape practices of the apartheid government and also refers to contemporary work done in Australia, England and the US. It probes the uncertainty and ambiguity of identities and cultures in post-apartheid society in order to gain a deep understanding of the history that individuals and society now confront. Drawing on a wealth of research materials including literature, maps, newspapers, monuments, architectural drawings, government legislation, tourist brochures, political writing and oral histories, this book is well illustrated throughout and is a unique commentary on the spatial politics of a time of enormous change.

The Concept of Land in the African Novel

The Concept of Land in the African Novel PDF Author: Sam A. Adewoye
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : African fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description


African Horizons

African Horizons PDF Author: Christine Loflin
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
As non-African writers have created images of Africa that suit their own needs, African writers have countered these images with African landscapes that emphasize the landmarks and horizons that are significant for Africans. In this volume, Loflin explores the importance of landscape description in African fiction, arguing that discussion of landscape can reveal the geographic, religious, political, and social boundaries of the text. In her analysis, Loflin examines themes of nationalism and ethnic identity, showing how the question of landscape is further complicated when writers in forced or voluntary exile from their native countries reconfigure their relationship to the landscape of Africa.

Text, Theory, Space

Text, Theory, Space PDF Author: Kate Darian-Smith
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415124072
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Focusing on two white settler societies, South Africa and Australia, this book investigates the meaning of 'the South' as an aesthetic, political geographical and cultural space. This is a landmark in post-colonial theory and criticism.Text, Theory, Space is a landmark in post-colonial criticism and theory. Focusing on two white settler societies, South Africa and Australia, the contributors investigate the meaning of 'the South' as an aesthetic, political, geographical and cultural space.Drawing upon a wide range of disciplines which include literature, history, urban and cultural geography, politics and anthropology, the contributors examine crucial issues including:* defining what 'the South' encompasses* investigating ideas of space, history, land and landscape* claiming, naming and possessing land* national and personal boundaries* questions of race, gender and nationalism

A Story of South Africa

A Story of South Africa PDF Author: Susan V. Gallagher
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
With the publication of Age of Iron--winner of Britain's richest fiction prize, the Sunday Express Book of the Year for 1990--J. M. Coetzee is now recognized as one of the foremost writers of our day. In this timely study of Coetzee's fiction, Susan Gallagher places his work in the context of South African history and politics. Her close historical readings of Coetzee's six major novels explore how he lays bare the "dense complicity between thought and language" in South Africa. Following a penetrating description of the unique difficulties facing writers under apartheid, Gallagher recounts how history, language, and authority have been used to marginalize the majority of South Africa's people. Her story reaches from the beginnings of Afrikaner nationalism to the recent past: the Sharpeville massacre, the jailing of Nelson Mandela, and the Soweto uprising. As a result of his rejection of liberal and socialist realism, Coetzee has been branded an escapist, but Gallagher ably defends him from this charge. Her cogent, convincingly argued examination of his novels demonstrates that Coetzee's fictional response is "apocalyptic in the most profound Biblical sense, obscurely pointing toward ineffable realities transcending discursive definition." Viewing Coetzee's fiction in this context, Gallagher describes a new kind of novel "that arises out of history, but also rivals history." This analysis reveals Coetzee's novels to be profound responses to their time and place as well as richly rewarding investigations of the storyteller's art.

Routledge Handbook of African Literature

Routledge Handbook of African Literature PDF Author: Moradewun Adejunmobi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351859374
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 462

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Book Description
The turn of the twenty-first century has witnessed an expansion of critical approaches to African literature. The Routledge Handbook of African Literature is a one-stop publication bringing together studies of African literary texts that embody an array of newer approaches applied to a wide range of works. This includes frameworks derived from food studies, utopian studies, network theory, eco-criticism, and examinations of the human/animal interface alongside more familiar discussions of postcolonial politics. Every chapter is an original research essay written by a broad spectrum of scholars with expertise in the subject, providing an application of the most recent insights into analysis of particular topics or application of particular critical frameworks to one or more African literary works. The handbook will be a valuable interdisciplinary resource for scholars and students of African literature, African culture, postcolonial literature and literary analysis. Chapter 4 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138713864_oachapter4.pdf