European-language Writing in Sub-Saharan AfricaAlbert S. Gérard John Benjamins Publishing, 1 janv. 1986 - 1288 pages The first major comparative study of African writing in western languages, European-language Writing in Sub-Saharan Africa, edited by Albert S. Gérard, falls into four wide-ranging sections: an overview of early contacts and colonial developments Under Western Eyes ; chapters on Black Consciousness manifest in the debates over Panafricanism and Negritude; a group of essays on mental decolonization expressed in Black Power texts at the time of independence struggles; and finally Comparative Vistas, sketching directions that future comparative study might explore. An introductory essay stresses the millennia of writing in Africa, side by side with a richly eloquent and artistic set of vernacular oral traditions; written and oral traditions have become interwoven in adaptations of imported forms and linguistic innovations that challenge traditional high literary norms. Gérard uses the mathematical concept of fuzzy sets to explain why the focus on Black Africa has led him to set aside for future analysis the literatures produced in North Africa, which fall under the influence of Muslim civilization, as well as the diasporic literatures of the New World. Over sixty scholars from twenty-two countries contribute specialized studies of creative writing by leading authors in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries such as Achebe, Mphahlele, Ngugi, Senghor, Soyinka, and Tutuola. Critical analyses are organized primarily around regions, reflecting different colonial languages imposed through schools and other social institutions. Some authors trace the adaptation of western genres, others identify syncretism with folktales or myths. The volumes are attentive to the heterogeneity of national literatures addressed to polyethnic and multilingual populations, and they note the instrumental politics of language in newly independent states. A closing chapter, Tasks Ahead, identifies areas for future scholars to explore. |
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Page 29
... British had known for many years, viz., that the old type of imperialism with overt control of countless millions of non-white people overseas, was a thing of the past. The political outspokenness of the poetry and prose fiction that ...
... British had known for many years, viz., that the old type of imperialism with overt control of countless millions of non-white people overseas, was a thing of the past. The political outspokenness of the poetry and prose fiction that ...
Page 30
... British scholars such as Antony Brench (1967) evinced an early interest, culminating in the most systematic survey to-date, Dorothy Blair's African Literature in French (1976). That the first and foremost taxonomic principle with regard ...
... British scholars such as Antony Brench (1967) evinced an early interest, culminating in the most systematic survey to-date, Dorothy Blair's African Literature in French (1976). That the first and foremost taxonomic principle with regard ...
Page 32
... British Africa were nurtured on Shakespeare, the Romantic poets and Victorian. 2° Ezekiel Mphahlele, Voices in the Whirlwind and Other Essays (New York: Macmillan, 1972), p. 183. 2' Frantz Fanon, Les Damne's de la terre (Paris: Maspéro, 32.
... British Africa were nurtured on Shakespeare, the Romantic poets and Victorian. 2° Ezekiel Mphahlele, Voices in the Whirlwind and Other Essays (New York: Macmillan, 1972), p. 183. 2' Frantz Fanon, Les Damne's de la terre (Paris: Maspéro, 32.
Page 33
... the three countries that the British colonial authorities had tried to unify on an inter-territorial basis soon fell apart, as their political regimes were utterly dissimilar and at times mutually hostile. It is of some importance to 33.
... the three countries that the British colonial authorities had tried to unify on an inter-territorial basis soon fell apart, as their political regimes were utterly dissimilar and at times mutually hostile. It is of some importance to 33.
Page 60
... British Museum.48 In 1791 it was arranged that a group of free black people in Nova Scotia should join the Sierra Leone settlement. John Clarkson was Acting-Governor at the time and in all honesty made offers of land which, once the new ...
... British Museum.48 In 1791 it was arranged that a group of free black people in Nova Scotia should join the Sierra Leone settlement. John Clarkson was Acting-Governor at the time and in all honesty made offers of land which, once the new ...
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