Spring 2009
Contemporary African Novels
Listed in: Black Studies, as BLST-40 | English, as ENGL-67
Faculty
Andrea B. Rushing (Section 01)
Description
(Also Black Studies 40.) The best known African novel is Nigerian Chinua Achebe’s masterful Things Fall Apart (1958) with its depiction of the tragic collision between a “traditional” African society and the colonizing power of Great Britain. As dozens of African countries gained political independence from their European colonizers, the next generation of novels presented renditions of post-colonial Africa. The novels for this course depart from both those categories. We will focus on writers from such English-speaking countries as Nigeria, Somalia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Although we will consider political and cultural contexts, we will concentrate our attention on the stories the novels tell, the strategies their authors use to tell them, and their use of language. Spring semester. Professor Rushing.