Research in African Literatures articles from June 2008

Research in African Literatures archives from June 2008

Metonymic eruptions: Igbo novelists, the narrative of the nation, and new developments in the contemporary Nigerian novel.(Critical essay)
June 22, 2008... ABSTRACT Nigeria's postcolonial nationality has been marked by disjunctions that continue to highlight its character, as a product of the colonial will, and of what Biodun Jeyifo has articulated as "arrested decolonization"--the basis of...

Women writers' round table: of phases and faces: Unoma Azuah engages Sefi Atta and Chika Unigwe.(Discussion)
June 22, 2008... In recognition of the centrality of women writers to the effervescence of the third-generation novel in Nigeria, a first in the literary annals of Nigeria, the co-editors decided that a project such as this ought to carve a space for women...

Staking claims: theorizing female agency and empowerment through black women's literary writings.(Critical essay)
June 22, 2008... BOOKS DISCUSSED Africana Womanist Literary Theory BY CLENORA HUDSON-WEEMS Trenton: African World P, 2004. xxiv + 156 pp. ISBN 1-59221-056-2 US$19.95 Tangible Voice-Throwing: Empowering Corporeal Discourses in ...

Seed time.(The Eloquence of the Scribes)(Critical essay)
June 22, 2008... BOOK DISCUSSED The Eloquence of the Scribes BY AYI KWEI ARMAH Popenguine: Per Ankh, 2006, 351pp. For a while in the mid-1980s, the writer Ayi Kwei Armah published a number of expository essays in the now-defunct West...

In and out of song.(Female Song Tradition and the Akan of Ghana: The Creative Process in Nnwonkoro)(Critical essay)
June 22, 2008... BOOK DISCUSSED Female Song Tradition and the Akan of Ghana: The Creative Process in Nnwonkoro BY KWASI AMPENE Aldershot, Hampshire, England; Burlington, VT, USA: Ashgate, 2005. ISBN 0-7546-3147-8. xxiv + 203. Append., bibliog, index,...

In word and image: remembering Anne Eisner's adventures in Africa.(Critical essay)
June 22, 2008... BOOK DISCUSSED Images of Congo: Anne Eisner Art and Ethnography, 1946-1958 ED. CHRISTIE MCDONALD Milan: 5 Continents, 2005, 175 pp. plus 32 color and 30 black and white illustrations, $39.00. ISBN: 88-7439-220-6,...

The Place of Tears: The Novel and Politics in Modern Zimbabwe.(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Place of Tears: The Novel and Politics in Modern Zimbabwe By Ranka Primorac London: Tauris Academic Studies, 2006, vii + 241 pp. ISBN 978-1-84511-120-5 cloth. When Zimbabwe became independent in 1980 it had no...

Femmes et ecriture de la transgression.(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Femmes et ecriture de la transgression ED. HAFID GAFAITI AND ARMELE CROUZIERES-IGENTHRON Paris: L'Harmattan, 2005 288 pp. ISBN 2-296-00059-2 paper. 25 [euro]. This recent publication in the book series "Transnational,...

Les enJEux de l'autobiographie dans les litteratures de langue francaise.(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Les enJEux de l'autobiographie dans les litteratures de langue francaise ED. SUSANNE GEHRMANN AND CLAUDIA GRONEMANN Paris: L'Harmattan, 2006. 303 pp. ISBN 2-296-00509-8. 27 [euro] paper. From Split to Screened Selves:...

L'Europe et les francophonies, langue, litterature, histoire, image.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... L'Europe et les francophonies, langue, litterature, histoire, image ED. YVES BRIDEL, BIDA CHIKHI, FRANCOIS XAVIER CUCHE, ET Marc Quaghebeur Bruxelles: Peter Lang, 2005. 329p. ISBN 90-5201-261 paper. In the series...

The Columbia Guide to East African Literature in English Since 1945.(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Columbia Guide to East African Literature in English Since 1945 BY SIMON GIKAND I AND EVAN MWANGI New York: Columbia UP, 2007. xxii + 194 pp. ISBN 978-0-231-12520-8 cloth. Following an intense 22-page historical and...

Biafra as heritage and symbol: Adichie, Mbachu, and Iweala.(Dulue Mbachu; Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; Uzodinma Iweala)(Report)
June 22, 2008... ABSTRACT Eddie Iroh made the observation that writers of his generation, who had lived through the Biafran conflict, were too close to the suffering to write the definitive accounts of the war, and that the task would fall to later...

Rewriting Modernity: Studies in Black South African Literary History.(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Rewriting Modernity: Studies in Black South African Literary History BY DAVID ATTWELL Athens: Ohio UP, 2006. x + 228 pp. ISBN: 0-8214-1712-6 paper. The justifiably high worldwide reputation of Olive Schreiner, Alan Paton,...

Black African Literature in English: 1991-2001: Critical Appreciation and Reception.(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Black African Literature in English: 1991-2001: Critical Appreciation and Reception BY FEMI ABODUNRIN Dar es Salaam: Mkuki na Nyota, 2007 Femi Abodunrin s book represents an evaluation of the major works of scholarship carried...

Tracing Personal Expansion: Reading Selected Novels as Modern African Bildungsromane.(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Tracing Personal Expansion: Reading Selected Novels as Modern African Bildungsromane BY WALTER P. COLLINS, III Lanham, MD: UP of America, 2006. 137 pp. ISBN-13: 978-0-7618-3483-0; 10: 7618-3483-4 paper. The critical...

The Power of the Word/ La puissance du verbe.(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Power of the Word/ La puissance du verbe ED. T. J. CRIBB The Cambridge Colloquia. Cross-Cultures 83 Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006. xxvi + 197 pp. ISBN: 90-420-1938-7 Judging from the front page cover boasting a...

The Defence of Lawino [Wer pa Lawino].(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Defence of Lawino [Wer pa Lawino] BY OKOT P'BITEK, TRANS. TABAN LO LIYONG 1969. Kampala: Fountain, 2001. ISBN 9970022695. xvi + 115 pp. Foreword by S. Raditlhao, preface by Taban to Liyong, and glossary. Distributed...

The Dassie and the Hunter: A South African Meeting.(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Dassie and the Hunter: A South African Meeting BY JEFF OPLAND Durban: U of KwaZulu-Natal P, 2005. 389 pp. ISBN 1-86914-036-2 hardback. In this unusual but pertinent book, Jeff Opland reconstructs the interaction between...

Of Minstrels and Masks: The Legacy of Ezenwa-Ohaeto in Nigerian Writing.(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Of Minstrels and Masks: The Legacy of Ezenwa-Ohaeto in Nigerian Writing ED. CHRISTINE MATZKE, ADEREMI RAJI-OYELADE, AND GEOFFREY V DAVIS. Matatu 33. 370 pp. This marvelous collection is a fitting tribute to a career...

Perspectives critiques: L'oeuvre d'Hedi Bouraoui.(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Perspectives critiques: L'oeuvre d'Hedi Bouraoui ED. ELISABETH SABISTON AND SUZANNE CROSTA Human Sciences Monograph 11 Sudbury, Ontario: Canada-Maghreb Centre, York University, 2006. 415 pp. ISBN 978-0-88667-070-2 The...

Women in Taarab.(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Women in Taarab BY MOHAMED EL-MOHAMMADY RIZK Schriften zur Afrikanistik/Research in African Studies 11. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2007. US-ISBN 0-8304-7385-5 paper. Exploring the role of women in taarab songs,...

Theatre and Environmental Education in Cameroon.(Women in Theatre for Development in Cameroon:Participation, Contributions and Limitations)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Theatre and Environmental Education in Cameroon BY JOHN TAKU TAKEM Bayreuth African Studies 76. Bayreuth: Pia Thielmann and Eckhard Breitinger, 2006. 193 pp. ISBN -927510-92-0 paper. Women in Theatre for Development in...

Autofiction and Advocacy in the Francophone Caribbean.(La poetique du renversement chez Maryse Conde, Massa Maka Diabate and Edouard Glissant)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Autofiction and Advocacy in the Francophone Caribbean BY RENEE LARRIER Gainesville: UP of Florida, 2006. x + 185 pp. ISBN 0-8130-3005-6 cloth La poetique du renversement chez Maryse Conde, Massa Maka Diabate and...

Die Macht des Wortes: Das journalistische Interview als Rezeptionsform afrikanischer Literaturen in der frankophonen, anglophonen und deutschsprachigen Presse-am Beispiel von Ousmane Sembene (Senegal) und Wole Soyinka (Nigeria).(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Die Macht des Wortes: Das journalistische Interview als Rezeptionsform afrikanischer Literaturen in der frankophonen, anglophonen und deutschsprachigen Presse-am Beispiel von Ousmane Sembene (Senegal) und Wole Soyinka...

De l'ecrit a l'ecran: Les reecritures filmiques du roman africain francophone.(Book review)
June 22, 2008... De l'ecrit a l'ecran: Les reecritures filmiques du roman africain francophone BY ALEXIE TCHEUYAP Ottawa: Les Presses de l'Universite d'Ottawa, 2005. ISBN 2-7603-0580-5/ISSN 1709-6219 paper. xvi + 229 pp. The symbiotic...

African Filmmaking North and South of the Sahara.(Book review)
June 22, 2008... African Filmmaking North and South of the Sahara BY ROY ARMES Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2006. xii + 224 pp. ISBN 0-253-21898-8 Roy Armes's African Filmmaking North and South of the Sahara is a study of African cinema by one...

Ordinary Cities Between Modernity and Development.(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Ordinary Cities Between Modernity and Development BY JENNIFER ROBINSON London: Routledge, 2007 ISBN 0-415-30487-3 cloth; 0-415-30488-7 paper. Published in Routledge's Questioning Cities series, Jennifer Robinsori s book is...

Sufi City: Urban Design and Archetypes in Touba.(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Sufi City: Urban Design and Archetypes in Touba BY ERIC ROSS Rochester: U of Rochester P, 2006. xv+ 290 pp. ISBN 1-58046-217-0 cloth Touba, the Muslim holy city founded by Shaykh Ahmadou Bamba Mbacke in 1887, is Senegal's...

History's Place: Nostalgia and the City in French Algerian Literature.(Book review)
June 22, 2008... History's Place: Nostalgia and the City in French Algerian Literature BY SETH GRAEBNER Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007 356 pp. ISBN 978-0-7391-1582-4 paper. Seth Graebner sets out a number of objectives in this...

Liberating Shahrazad: Feminism, Postcolonialism, and Islam.(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Liberating Shahrazad: Feminism, Postcolonialism, and Islam BY SUZANNE GAUCH Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2007. xx + 175 pp. ISBN 0-8166-4883-2 paper. Suzanne Gauch takes the figure of Shahrazad, the storyteller from...

Hybridity: Limits, Transformations, Prospects.(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Hybridity: Limits, Transformations, Prospects BY ANJALI PRABHU Albany: SUNY Press, 2007. xv + 185 pp. ISBN 978-0-7914-7042-8. This is a stimulating and important book for anyone interested in the radical potential of the...

Fiction and the Incompleteness of History: Toni Morrison, V. S. Naipaul, and Ben Okri.(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Fiction and the Incompleteness of History: Toni Morrison, V. S. Naipaul, and Ben Okri BY ZHU YING Bern: Peter Lang, 2006. 160pp. ISBN 3-03910-746-1 Zhu Ying's study is, in her own words, a reading of "Morrison, Naipaul...

Africa: A Guide to Reference Material.(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Africa: A Guide to Reference Material BY JOHN MCILWAINE 2nd rev. and expanded ed. Lochcarron: Hans Zell P, 2007 liv + 608 pp. ISBN 10-0-9541029-3-2 cloth John McIlwaine, Professor Emeritus of the Bibliography of Asia and...

De la litterature coloniale a la litterature africaine.(Book review)
June 22, 2008... De la litterature coloniale a la litterature africaine BY JANOS RIESZ Paris: Karthala, 2007. 421 pp. ISBN 978-2-84586-895-3 In bringing together in this collection twenty of his articles that have been published in journals...

Ora na-azu nwa: the figure of the child in third-generation Nigerian novels.(Critical essay)
June 22, 2008... ABSTRACT This article examines the complex role of the child or youth protagonist, who features so prominently in third-generation Nigerian fiction. Countering reductionist claims that demote these texts to juvenile fiction, it draws on...

"Half and Half Children": third-generation women writers and the new Nigerian novel.(Critical essay)
June 22, 2008... ABSTRACT The paper looks at seven novels by women published since 2000, and asks in what ways they reconfigure realism and the social text of the recent Nigerian past. Their authors are engaged in a lively dialogue with their literary...

Entropy and energy: Lagos as city of words.
June 22, 2008... ABSTRACT In his 1971 study City of Words, Tony Tanner employs the term "entropy" to characterize the vision of the city offered by American novelists of the second half of the twentieth century. The term applies equally to the accounts...

The deep stirring of the unhomely: African diaspora on Biyi Bandele's The Street.
June 22, 2008... ABSTRACT Informed by the pervasive dispersal of peoples, capital, commodities and ideas across the globe the concepts of home and diaspora have produced some of the liveliest debates in recent times. Previously conceived in essentialist...

Of female husbands and boarding school girls: gender bending in Unoma Azuah's fiction.(Sky-High Flames )
June 22, 2008... ABSTRACT While Azuah's novel Sky-High Flames (2005) is firmly grounded in the Igbo sociological context, comprising ancestor worship, the cult of a female goddess, polygamy, and the levirate, the novel taps into the practice of female...

Introduction: everything good is raining: provisional notes on the Nigerian novel of the third generation.
June 22, 2008... The origins of this special issue of Research in African Literatures date back to 1998 when the guest editors, Pius Adesanmi and Chris Dunton, drew up plans to assemble a collection of essays on what we referred to as "third-generation"...