The ten articles on African literature in this collection were chosen from the 1995 conference of the African Literature Association held in Columbus, Ohio. The theme of that conference, "The Post-Colonial Condition of African Literature," has been broadly interpreted in both practical and theoretical ways by our writers. Most of them simply use the phrase "Post-colonial" to refer to contemporary writings in Africa and the African diaspora.

Other examine the more theoretical aspects of post-colonial culture, especially as it illuminates the complex relationship between Africa and the West. Still other essays are concerned with feminist critiques of African literature.

This volume also includes detailed analyses of important literary works such as Ben Okri's The Famished Road, Henri Lopes' Le Peurer Rire [The Laughing Cry], Maryse Conde's Segu, and Ellen Kuzwayo's Call Me Woman. There are also studies on the contemporary Kenyan novel, Southern African women writers, the West African epics in cassette form, the adaptation of Joseph Zobel's novel La Rue Cases Negres into film, and the early teenage writing of the novelist Ayi Kwei Armah.

Contributors included in this volume are: Koffi Anyinefa, Anjalik Roy, Eleni Coundouriotis, Carmela Garritano, Lindsey Pentolfe Aegerter, Brinda Mehta, Robert C. Newton, J. Roger Kurtz, Hal Wylie, and Bernth Lindfors.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Daniel Gover is Professor of English at Kean Univesity in New Jersey. He has published articles on Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Bessie Head, and Alex La Guma.

John Conteh-Morgan is an associate professor of French and Francophone Literature at Ohio State Univesity. He is the author of Theatre and Drama in Francophone Africa (Cambridge UP 1994), and an associate editor of Research in African Literatures.

Jane Bryce, who is originally from Tanzania, is currently a lecturer in African literature and creative writing at the Barbados campus of the Univesity of the West Indies. Her critical writing has been published in many anthologies including Motherlands, Writing and Africa and Readings in African Popular Culture.

CATEGORY

Literature, Literary Criticism/AFRICA