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Author: Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong
Publisher: Ohio University Press
ISBN: 0821445669
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 459
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Book Description
There has long been a need for a new textbook on West Africa’s history. In Themes in West Africa’s History, editor Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong and his contributors meet this need, examining key themes in West Africa’s prehistory to the present through the lenses of their different disciplines. The contents of the book comprise an introduction and thirteen chapters divided into three parts. Each chapter provides an overview of existing literature on major topics, as well as a short list of recommended reading, and breaks new ground through the incorporation of original research. The first part of the book examines paths to a West African past, including perspectives from archaeology, ecology and culture, linguistics, and oral traditions. Part two probes environment, society, and agency and historical change through essays on the slave trade, social inequality, religious interaction, poverty, disease, and urbanization. Part three sheds light on contemporary West Africa in exploring how economic and political developments have shaped religious expression and identity in significant ways. Themes in West Africa’s History represents a range of intellectual views and interpretations from leading scholars on West Africa’s history. It will appeal to college undergraduates, graduate students, and scholars in the way it draws on different disciplines and expertise to bring together key themes in West Africa’s history, from prehistory to the present.
Author: Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong
Publisher: Ohio University Press
ISBN: 0821445669
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 459
Get Book Here
Book Description
There has long been a need for a new textbook on West Africa’s history. In Themes in West Africa’s History, editor Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong and his contributors meet this need, examining key themes in West Africa’s prehistory to the present through the lenses of their different disciplines. The contents of the book comprise an introduction and thirteen chapters divided into three parts. Each chapter provides an overview of existing literature on major topics, as well as a short list of recommended reading, and breaks new ground through the incorporation of original research. The first part of the book examines paths to a West African past, including perspectives from archaeology, ecology and culture, linguistics, and oral traditions. Part two probes environment, society, and agency and historical change through essays on the slave trade, social inequality, religious interaction, poverty, disease, and urbanization. Part three sheds light on contemporary West Africa in exploring how economic and political developments have shaped religious expression and identity in significant ways. Themes in West Africa’s History represents a range of intellectual views and interpretations from leading scholars on West Africa’s history. It will appeal to college undergraduates, graduate students, and scholars in the way it draws on different disciplines and expertise to bring together key themes in West Africa’s history, from prehistory to the present.
Author: Douglas Killam
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313058210
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 224
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Book Description
As more works of African Literature are being incorporated into the Language Arts and Cultural Studies curriculum, it becomes increasingly important to offer students and educators a meaningful context in which to explore these works. As part of Greenwood's Literature as Windows to World Culture series, this volume introduces readers to the cultural concerns of 10 of Africa's most reknowned writers. Written in clear accessible language, close analysis is given for 14 novels, including Achebe's Things Fall Apart, and Paton's Cry the Beloved Country, chosen because of their literary importance and the frequency with which they are assigned. The ten analysis chapters each begin with a brief account of the authors' lives and their writing careers, noting especially the experiences and influences which have shaped their writing. Following this section is a major essay on their most prominent and best known work. Discussion of the historical and cultural issues in the novels is integrated into the literary commentary. Students will gain not a deeper appreciation for the fiction, but a more solid understanding of the core historical issues and cultural concerns that influence and shape the writing. The Introduction outlines the general history and development of Sub-Saharan African Literature. The colonial experiences and postcolonial struggles, the principal subject matter of African writers, differs from region to region. The geographic organization of this guide into West, East and South Africa reflects these different perspectives. Each section ends with a list of critical works that will assist readers and researchers further their understanding of the authors and their works. Short biographical sketches on 80 authors are also provided to expand readers' contact with African literature. The index assists users in identifying not only title and authors but also major themes and topics that the writings reveal.
Author: Chinua Achebe
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0385474547
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 226
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Book Description
“A true classic of world literature . . . A masterpiece that has inspired generations of writers in Nigeria, across Africa, and around the world.” —Barack Obama “African literature is incomplete and unthinkable without the works of Chinua Achebe.” —Toni Morrison Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read Things Fall Apart is the first of three novels in Chinua Achebe's critically acclaimed African Trilogy. It is a classic narrative about Africa's cataclysmic encounter with Europe as it establishes a colonial presence on the continent. Told through the fictional experiences of Okonkwo, a wealthy and fearless Igbo warrior of Umuofia in the late 1800s, Things Fall Apart explores one man's futile resistance to the devaluing of his Igbo traditions by British political andreligious forces and his despair as his community capitulates to the powerful new order. With more than 20 million copies sold and translated into fifty-seven languages, Things Fall Apart provides one of the most illuminating and permanent monuments to African experience. Achebe does not only capture life in a pre-colonial African village, he conveys the tragedy of the loss of that world while broadening our understanding of our contemporary realities.
Author: Dominic Thomas
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253109545
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 304
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Book Description
What characterizes the relationship between literature and the state? Should literature serve the needs of the state by constructing national consciousness, espousing state propaganda, and molding good citizens? Or should it be dedicated to a different kind of creative social endeavor? In this important book about literature and the politics of nation-building, Dominic Thomas assesses the contributions of Francophone African writers whose works have played a key role in the recent transition to democracy in the Congo. Exploring the works of Sony Labou Tansi, Henri Lopes, and Emmanuel Dongala, among others, Thomas highlights writers intimately involved with government and politics -- whether in support of the state's vision or with the intention of articulating a more open view of citizens and society. Focusing on themes such as collaboration, reconciliation, identity, history, and memory, Nation-Building, Propaganda, and Literature in Francophone Africa elaborates a broader understanding of the circumstances of African colonization, modern African nation-state formation, and the complex cultural dynamics at work in Africa since independence.
Author: Damian Ugwutikiri Opata
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : African literature
Languages : en
Pages : 272
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Book Description
Author: Elechi Amadi
Publisher: Heinemann
ISBN: 9780435905569
Category : African fiction (English)
Languages : en
Pages : 228
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Book Description
Set in a remote village in Eastern Nigeria, an area yet to be affected by European values and where society is orderly and predictable, the story concerns a woman "of great beauty and dignity" who inadvertently brings suffering and death to all her lovers. The novel portrays a society still ruled by traditional gods, offering a glimpse into the human relationships that such a society creates.
Author: Thomas Mofolo
Publisher: Waveland Press
ISBN: 1478609729
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 193
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Book Description
Chaka is a genuine masterpiece that represents one of the earliest major contributions of black Africa to the corpus of modern world literature. Mofolos fictionalized life-story account of Chaka (Shaka), translated from Sesotho by D. P. Kunene, begins with the future Zulu kings birth followed by the unwarranted taunts and abuse he receives during childhood and adolescence. The author manipulates events leading to Chakas status of great Zulu warrior, conqueror, and king to emphasize classic tragedys psychological themes of ambition and power, cruelty, and ultimate ruin. Mofolos clever nods to the supernatural add symbolic value. Kunenes fine translation renders the dramatic and tragic tensions in Mofolos tale palpable as the richness of the authors own culture is revealed. A substantial introduction by the translator provides valuable context for modern readers.
Author: Walter Collins
Publisher: Cambria Press
ISBN: 1621967212
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 240
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Book Description
Sefi Atta is one of the latest in a great line of female Nigerian writers. her works have garnered several literary awards; these include the Red Hen Press Short Story Award, the PEN International David TK Wong Prize, the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa, and the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa. Atta's oeuvre has received the praise and respect of several noted African writers such as Buchi Emecheta, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Helon Habila. Atta's insights into the roles and treatment of women, neocolonial government structures, patriarchy, 21st-century phenomena such as Nigerian e-mail phishing and the role of geography and place in characters' lives make her works some of the most indelible offerings across contemporary African fiction. Nevertheless, there exists a relative dearth of critical analyses of her works. That Atta writes across the genres perhaps explains some of the lack of literary criticism of her works. This study will facilitate continued examination of Atta's writings and further dissemination of critique. In this premiere edited volume on the works of Sefi Atta, Collins has assembled contributors from around the globe who offer critical analysis on each of Atta's published novels and several of her short stories. The volume is divided into four sections with chapters grouped by thematic connections-Sisterhood, Womanhood and Rites of Passage, The City, Dark Aspects of Atta's Works and Atta's Literature in Application. The book examines Atta's treatment of these themes while referencing the proficiency of her writing and style. The collection includes an interview with Atta where she offers an insightful and progressive perspective on current language use by Africans. This book is the first aggregate of literary critique on selected works of Sefi Atta. This book is an important volume of literary criticism for all literature, world literature and African literature collections. It is part of the Cambria African Studies Series headed by Toyin Falola (University of Texas at Austin) with Moses Ochonu (Vanderbilt University).
Author: Dambudzo Marechera
Publisher: Waveland Press
ISBN: 1478609494
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 169
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Book Description
This explosive, award-winning novella of growing up in colonial Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), told in exquisite, imaginative prose, touches the readers nerve through the authors harrowing portrait of lives disrupted by white settlers, a young disillusioned black man, and individual suffering in the 1960s and 1970s. Marecheras raw, piercing writings secured his place in African literature as a stylistic innovator and rebel commentator of the ghetto condition. While The House of Hunger is the centerpiece of this collection, readers are also treated to a series of short sketches in which Marechera, with angry humor, further navigates themes of madness, violence, despair, and survival.
Author: Isak Dinesen
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 1443432954
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 408
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Book Description
In Out of Africa, author Isak Dinesen takes a wistful and nostalgic look back on her years living in Africa on a Kenyan coffee plantation. Recalling the lives of friends and neighbours—both African and European—Dinesen provides a first-hand perspective of colonial Africa. Through her obvious love of both the landscape and her time in Africa, Dinesen’s meditative writing style deeply reflects the themes of loss as her plantation fails and she returns to Europe. HarperTorch brings great works of non-fiction and the dramatic arts to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperTorch collection to build your digital library.
