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African literatures and beyond : a florilegium
This tribute collection reflects the wide range and diversity of James Gibbs's academic interests. The focus is on Africa, but comparative studies of other literatures also receive attention. Fiction, drama, and poetry by writers from Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Eritrea, Malawi, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Ireland, England, Germany, India, and the Caribbean are surveyed alongside significant missionaries, scientists, performers, and scholars. The writers discussed include Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Kobina Sekyi, Raphael Armattoe, J.E. Casely Hayford, Michael Dei-Anang, Kofi Awoonor, Ayi Kwei Armah, John Kolosa Kargbo, Dele Charley, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Okot p'Bitek, Jonathan Sajiwandani, Samuel E. Krune Mqhayi, A.S. Mopeli-Paulus, Kelwyn Sole, Anna Seghers, Raja Rao, and Arundhati Roy. Other essays treat the black presence in Ireland, anonymous rap artists in Chicago, the Jamaican missionary Joseph Jackson Fuller in the Cameroons, the African-American actor Ira Aldridge in Sweden, the Swedish naturalist Anders Sparrman in South Africa, and the literary scholar and editor Eldred Durosimi Jones in Sierra Leone. Interviews with the Afro-German Africanist Theodor Wonja Michael and the Irish-Nigerian dramatist Gabriel Gbadamosi are also included. Also offered are poems by Jack Mapanje and Kofi Anyidoho, short stories by Charles R. Larson and Robert Fraser, plays by Femi Osofisan and Martin Banham, and an account of a dramatic reading of a script written and co-performed by James Gibbs. Contributors: Anne Adams, Sola Adeyemi, Kofi Anyidoho, Awo Mana Asiedu, Martin Banham, Eckhard Breitinger, Gordon Collier, James Currey, Geoffrey V. Davis, Chris Dunton, Robert Fraser, Raoul J. Granqvist, Gareth Griffiths, C.L. Innes, Charles R. Larson, Bernth Lindfors, Leif Lorentzon, Jack Mapanje, Christine Matzke, Mpalive-Hangson Msiska, Femi Osofisan, Eustace Palmer,
Jane Plastow, Lynn Taylor, and Pia Thielmann.
eBook
Zimbabwean Transitions
This collection of essays on Zimbabwean literature brings together studies of both Rhodesian and Zimbabwean literature, spanning different languages and genres. It charts the at times painful process of the evolution of Rhodesian/ Zimbabwean identities that was shaped by pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial realities. The hybrid nature of the society emerges as different writers endeavour to make sense of their world.Two essays focus on the literature of the white settler. The first distils the essence of white settlers alienation from the Africa they purport to civilize, revealing the delusional fixations of the racist mindset that permeates the discourse of the white mans burden in imperial narratives. The second takes up the theme of alienation found in settler discourse, showing how the collapse of the white supremacists dream when southern African countries gained independence left many settlers caught up in a profound identity crisis.Four essays are devoted to Ndebele writing. They focus on the praise poetry composed for kings Mzilikazi and Lobengula; the preponderance of historical themes in Ndebele literature; the dilemma that lies at the heart of the modern Ndebele identity; and the fossilized views on gender roles found in the works of leading Ndebele novelists, both female and male.The essays on English-language writing chart the predominantly negative view of women found in the fiction of Stanley Nyamfukudza, assess the destabilization of masculine identities in post-colonial Zimbabwe, evaluate the complex vision of life and reality in Charles Mungoshis short stories as exemplified in the tragic isolation of many of his protagonists, and explore Dambudzo Marecheras obsession with isolated, threatened individuals in his hitherto generally neglected dramas.The development of Shona writing is surveyed in two articles: the
first traces its development from its origins as a colonial educational tool to the more critical works of the post-1980 independence phase; the second turns the spotlight on written drama from 1968 when plays seemed divorced from the everyday realities of peoples lives to more recent work which engages with corruption and the perversion of the moral order.The volume also includes an illuminating interview with Irene Staunton, the former publisher of Baobab Books and now of Weaver Press.
eBook
Of Minstrelsy and Masks
This collection is dedicated to a distinguished scholar and writer who for a quarter of a century wrote consistently on African literature and the arts and was a major voice in Nigerian literary circles. EzenwaOhaeto made a mark in contemporary Nigerian poetry by committing pidgin to written form and, by so doing, introducing different creative patterns. He also saw himself as a minstrel, as someone who wanted to read, express and enact his work before an audience. First and foremost, however, EzenwaOhaeto was someone who un-masked ideas and meanings hidden in the folds of literary works and made them available to an international academic public. With his outstanding work on Chinua Achebe, he influenced the reception of African literary biography. His networks and connections were extensive and wide-ranging, and they are partly reflected in the essays, creative writing and personal notes assembled in this volume. In their various modes and expressions, the contributions included here constitute a tribute to EzenwaOhaetos many talents and achievements. As an extension of EzenwaOhaetos legacy, they expand on various aspects of minstrelsy and the un/masking of texts in a Nigerian and broader African context. The book is divided into six sections. In Memoriam contains personal tributes by long-standing colleagues, mentors and friends. Poetry and Fiction collects the voices of three generations of Nigerian writing from the 1960s to the present day, followed by poetic and pictorial insights into the domestic and social life of the scholar and family man. Section Four comprises two interviews, while Sections Five and Six are devoted to critical evaluations of EzenwaOhaetos work and to contemporary perspectives on Nigerian literature respectively.
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