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基本説明
The aim of this book is not to provide an authoritative, encyclopaedic account, but to consider a selection of the region's literatures in relation to prevailing discussions about literature and postcolonialism.
Full Description
The Oxford Studies in Postcolonial Literatures series (general editor: Elleke Boehmer) offers stimulating and accessible introductions to definitive topics and key genres and regions within the rapidly diversifying field of postcolonial literary studies in English.
This study of West African literatures interweaves the analysis of fiction, drama, and poetry with an exploration of the broader political, cultural, and intellectual contexts within which West African writers work. Anglophone literatures form the central focus of the book, with comparative comments on vernacular literature, francophone writing and oral literatures, and detailed discussion of selected francophone texts in translation (e.g., Senghor, Tadjo, Beyala, Bâ, Sembene). Moving from a discussion of nationalist and anti-colonial writing in the period before independence, towards the more experimental writings of contemporary authors such as Véronique Tadjo (Ivory Coast), Syl Cheney-Coker (Sierra Leone), and Kojo Laing (Ghana), the book constantly relates texts to the social and political history of West Africa. Canonical, internationally well-known writers such as Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka are positioned in relation to the literary cultures and debates which surrounded them when they first produced their seminal texts; the discussions and disagreements which have grown up around their work in subsequent decades are also considered. The work of new and lesser-known writers is also considered, including Niyi Osundare (Nigeria) and Kofi Anyidoho (Ghana). In order to convey a sense of the rich and complex societies that are clustered beneath the umbrella-term 'postcolonial', emphasis is placed on West Africa's diverse oral and popular cultures, and the ways in which local intellectuals and readers have responded to the most prominent authors through the aesthetic frameworks generated by these forms.
Contents
West African Timeline ; Introduction: Where is 'West Africa'? ; 1. Negritude ; 2. Facing East: Islam and Identity in West African Literature ; 3. Oral Literatures ; 4. Lost and Found in Translation ; 5. Things Fall Apart: Presence and Palimpsest in the Colonial-Scape ; 6. Popular Literature ; 7. Griots with Pens in their Hands: Literary Experiments with Oral Genres, 1960s-1990s ; 8. Feminism and the Complex Space of Women's Writing ; 9. Marxism and West African Literature ; 10. The Three 'Posts': Postmodernism, Poststructuralism, Postcolonialism ; 11. Experimental Writing by the 'Third Generation' ; 12. 'Queering' West African Gender Theory: Calixthe Beyala, Werewere Liking, and Veronique Tadjo ; Conclusion: West Africa in Postcolonial Theory
