| Africa Writes Back to Self: Metafiction, Gender, Sexuality Contributor(s): Mwangi, Evan M. (Author) |
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ISBN: 143842681X ISBN-13: 9781438426815 Publisher: State University of New York Press OUR PRICE: $90.25 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: July 2009 Annotation: The profound effects of colonialism and its legacies on African cultures have led postcolonial scholars of recent African literature to characterize contemporary African novels as, first and foremost, responses to colonial domination by the West. In Africa Writes Back to Self, Evan Maina Mwangi argues instead that the novels are primarily engaged in conversation with each other, particularly over emergent gender issues such as the representation of homosexuality and the disenfranchisement of women by male-dominated governments. He covers the work of canonical novelists Nadine Gordimer, Chinua Achebe, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, and J. M. Coetzee, as well as popular writers such as Grace Ogot, David Maillu, Promise Okekwe, and Rebeka Njau. Mwangi examines the novels' self-reflexive fictional strategies and their potential to refigure the dynamics of gender and sexuality in Africa and demote the West as the reference point for cultures of the Global South. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism | African |
| Dewey: 823.914 |
| LCCN: 2009005428 |
| Physical Information: 1" H x 6.1" W x 9.1" (1.40 lbs) 346 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: The profound effects of colonialism and its legacies on African cultures have led postcolonial scholars of recent African literature to characterize contemporary African novels as, first and foremost, responses to colonial domination by the West. In Africa Writes Back to Self, Evan Maina Mwangi argues instead that the novels are primarily engaged in conversation with each other, particularly over emergent gender issues such as the representation of homosexuality and the disenfranchisement of women by male-dominated governments. He covers the work of canonical novelists Nadine Gordimer, Chinua Achebe, Ngu gi wa Thiong'o, and J. M. Coetzee, as well as popular writers such as Grace Ogot, David Maillu, Promise Okekwe, and Rebeka Njau. Mwangi examines the novels' self-reflexive fictional strategies and their potential to refigure the dynamics of gender and sexuality in Africa and demote the West as the reference point for cultures of the Global South. |