African Literature in the World - Simon Gikandi

In�African Literature in the World, Simon Gikandi asks: Why do debates on language continue to inform and haunt African writing? What happened when�writing replaced orality as the primary form of creative expression? When, how, and why did the�novel come to occupy such a dominant role in African literary history? This is a comprehensive study of the histories and theories of African literature in the�twentieth century and shows how African writers adopted and transformed the English language and�its traditions to account for African identities and experiences. Concerned with writing and�reading as forms of mediation, Gikandi provides examples of how imaginative works�shaped the public sphere in Africa in relation to decolonization and the politics of language. He explores how the emergence of a modern tradition of African writing has generated new forms�of criticism in relation to the form of the novel, modernity, and modernism.