"These three stories...show what happens when a considerable sophistication
and resourcefulness of technique is applied to traditional storytelling
material." Top of Form | African Literature
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"An Arabian Nights in reverse; the brilliant student of an earlier
generation returns to his Sudanese village; obsessed with the mysterious
West and a desire to bite the hand that has half-fed him, has led him to
London and the beds of women with similar obsessions about the mysterious
East." "An arresting work by a major Arab novelist who mines the rich
lode of African experience with the Western World." "Season of Migration to the North is among the six finest novels
to be written in modern Arabic literature." Top of Form | African Literature
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Could an Indian woman love an African man? How would Indians have described
the crossing from India to Africa? The Indian community in South Africa
has been largely ignored by writers and historians. In these stories, Agnes
Sam has given vivid and imaginative life to the "hidden history."
She explores the Indians' struggle with vastly differing cultures -- African,
Indians, and European -- frequently focusing on the experience of women,
who also must contend with a male-dominated society. Agnes Sam's South
African childhood and her Indian past provide the inspiration for this
collection of bright, vibrant, humorous, and compassionate short stories.
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An imaginative historical novel about the clash between Cecil Rhodes
and Lobengula, the Matabele King. Top of Form | African Literature
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"What Paris is to Balzac, and Dublin is to James Joyce, Dukana is to Ken Saro-Wiwa." Dukana is the all-important semi-mythical town of the Khana people of the Niger Delta, whose governmental administration is called BOLGA (Bori Local Government Area of Rivers State of Nigeria). Ken Saro-Wiwa--born Kenule Benson Tsaro-Wiwa--was born at Bori on 10 October, 1941. Whether a student of the Government College Umuahia (which also produced, in addition to Chinua Achebe and Elechi Amadi, his classmate I.N.C. Aniebo), or at University College Ibadan (which became a full-fledged university only after his second year), he was always proud of his cultural roots, drawing a direct line of descent from ancient Ghana to semi-modern Khana. Although he only emerged as a major writer in his mid-forties with his first three major works--Songs in a Time of War (1985), Sozaboy (1985), and A Forest of Flowers, short stories (1986)--his literary style began to develop over twenty years earlier when he was editor of the Obadan English Department's student magazine The Horizon and the president of its dramatic society. Though his early goals were for an academic career in drama, his very first publications were in fiction (eg. the short sketch "High Life," which appeared in The Horizon). By the time "High Life" was published (in the the anthology Africa in Prose, editied by O.R. Dathorne and Willfried Feuser), history placed itself in the immediate path of Saro-Wiwa's purely academic pursuits and placed him in the midst of the Biafran War, first as the Federal Administrator for Bonny and then as Civil Commisioner in the Rivers State Government (1968-1973). Even from the start, language and its use emerged as the heart of Saro-Wiwa's concern. In private accounts, he expressed his censure of some of the best known African novelists and short-story writers. According to him, "their narritive proficiency and their plot construction are rarely matched by an appropriate style." A look at his own prose style reveals the almost total absence of what Femi Osofisan has quite derogatorily called "proverbialization: the excessive larding of the English narritive whith more or less felicitously translated proverbs that reduces the writer's world view to the trado-mythical level and his linguistic universe to the proportions of a museum, if not a prison, thus tying him to the apron strings of his linguistic substratum." Even though other modern African writers (namely Obi Wali, a friend of Saro-Wiwa's) have begun to write in an African language, Saro-Wiwa does not have the resources of a major Nigerian language to fall back upon (apart from a translation of the Bible, there is no other noteworthy literary work written in his native Khana). Therefore, he may tinker with proper name in his own language, for example, "Dukana, " a "market in Khana," but that is as far as his connection to linguistics goes. The rest is an "intense dedication to the medium of English." Ken Saro-Wiwa continues to write, operating on two distinct levels: that of pure English and that of which he calls "rotten English," a local, pidginized Nigerian variety of limited communication. Top of Form | African Literature
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"...there is an astonishing unity in this excellent collection."
A teaching anthology that illustrates the art of short fiction with
examples from Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Malawi as well as from the longer established
South African tradition. Top of Form | African Literature
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Pour comprendre le Rwanda actuel, Il est bon de retourner a ses origines. On y rencontre deja les bons anges tutelaires et deja les mauvais demons. Les racines du present plongent aussi bien dans la saga des origines que dans la colonisation civile et religieuse. De la rencontre des deux est n*e une certaine identite du Rwandais. Anterieur s la rencontre de l'Occident, le Rwandais (un melange subtil de Hutu, de Twa et de Tutsi), retrouva son "independance" dans la tourmente des ann*es soixante ; son existence meme se trouva menacee dans le genocide de 1994 ; il cherche aujourd'hui a reforger son identite au milieu de l'urgence d'enjeux nouveaux, avec un sens aigu de sa fragilite. L'auteur ne nous raconte que les "racines des choses" : les origines du Rwanda actuel. Servilien-M Sebasoni est ne au Rwanda. Il vit en Belgique ou il a etudie les " Lettres classiques " et la sociologie. Il a enseigne au Congo (Zaire), aux iles Comores, en Belgique et en Chine. Top of Form | African Literature
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Rwandais contraint a l'exil depuis sa petite enfance parce que Tutsi, Benjamin Sehene revient dans son pays exactement trente ans plus tard en 1994. Ce retour a lieu a l'occasion d'un evenement particulierement tragique : le genocide qui a vu mourir un million de personnes en quelques semaines, sauvagement massacrees en raison de leur origine ethnique tutsi. L'auteur alterne analyses politiques et experiences personnelles dans un Rwanda se remettant difficilement de l'horreur et qu'il parcourt a la recherche de ses racines familiales. Beaucoup a ete publie sur le Rwanda mais peu de livres ont ete ecrits par des Rwandais. A l'heure ou la France commence a prendre conscience de sa responsabilite dans le drame qui a frappe le "Pays des Mille Collines", c'est un temoignage d'autant plus capital qu'il cherche a depasser la profonde haine dressant l'une contre l'autre les deux communautes rwandaises.
First chapter of an excellent book written by rwandan author Benjamin Sehene about the 1994 genocide of Rwanda's Tutsis... Top of Form | African Literature
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A Ghanaian David Copperfield: the upbringing of a boy in a strict mission
household and his conflict with his father. Top of Form | African Literature
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Josias Semujanga a ete professeur a l'Universite nationale du Rwanda (1996-1997) et a l'Universite de Western Ontario (1997-1999). Depuis juin 1999, il est professeur a l'Universite de Montreal ou il enseigne la litterature francophone de l'Afrique. Top of Form | African Literature
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Leopold Sedar Senghor, Translated by Melvin Dixon 639 pages, 5-1/2 x 8-1/2 Ç Paper $19.95 ISBN 0-8139-1832-4 Leopold Sedar Senghor was not only president of the Republic of Senegal from 1960 to 1981, he is also Africa's most famous poet. A cofounder of the Negritude cultural movement, he is recognized as one of the most significant figures in African literature. This bilingual edition of Senghor's complete poems made his work available for the first time to English-speaking audiences. His poetry, alive with sensual imagery, contrasts the lushness and wonder of Africa's past with the alienation and loss associated with assimilation into European culture Translator Melvin Dixon places Senghor's writing in historical persepctive by relating it to both his political involvement and his intellectual development. Top of Form | African Literature
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A Ride on the Whirlwind, is set during the 1976 June riots in
Soweto, and provides a powerful and moving account of the tensions and
turbulence, intrigue and confusion which enveloped the township and rocked
the nation. Top of Form | African Literature
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Mongane Serote forces the reader to feel, see, hear, and understand
the South African situation in this remarkable novel set in Alexandria
Township on the outskirts of Johannesburg. Top of Form | African Literature
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Gaele Sobott-Mogwe is the author of several children's books and
has lived in Botswana since 1978. She is a lecturer in the English Department
at the University of Botswana. In this haunting collection of short stories, fantasy and reality blend
as African history and tradition meld with the grittiness of everyday life.
Gaele Sobott-Mogwe's stories tell of everyday life in Southern Africa.
She captures the casual or determined oppression of men and women, the
delightful tenderness of human affection, the powerful rhythm of African
myth. The politics of personal relationship are explored against a background
of social injustice and material hardship. Yet we never lose sight of the
individual human experience, the moment of insight, the sensation of pain
or pleasure. Top of Form | African Literature
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Jock Campbell/New Statesman Prize 1969 "A really brilliant novel in which Soyinka's talents as a poet,
playwright and an extraordinarily sensitive writer of prose, are all fused."
The Nobel Laureate's first novel spotlights a small circle of young
Nigerian intellectuals living in Lagos. Top of Form | African Literature
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Tayeb SALIH The Wedding of Zein and Other Sudanese Stories
Translated by Denys Johnson-Davies
-- The Guardian Season of Migration to the North
Translated by Denys Johnson-Davies
-- The Observer
-- Publishers Weekly
-- Edward Said, Professor of English Literature, Columbia University
Agnes SAM Jesus Is Indian
Stanlake SAMKANGE On Trial for My Country
Ken Saro-Wiwa, 1941-1995
Ken Saro-Wiwa then abandoned academia but not his love for the arts. He took part in the Second BBC African Service Competition in October, 1971 and the jury (consisting of Martin Esslin, Lewis Nkosi and Wole Soyinka) awarded him joint fourth place.
Edited by Paul Scanlon Stories from Central & Southern Africa
-- World Literature Today
Servilien SEBASONI
Les Origines du Rwanda
Benjamin SEHENE Le Piege Ethnique
The Ethnic Trap
Francis SELORMEY The Narrow Path
Josias SEMUJANGA
Recits fondateurs du drame rwandais... (Paris, L'Harmattan, 1998).
Leopold Sedar Senghor The Collected Poetry
Sipho SEPAMLA A Ride on the Whirlwind
Mongane SEROTE To Every Birth its Blood
Gaele Sobott-Mogwe Colour
Me Blue
Wole SOYINKA The Interpreters
Introduction and Notes by Eldred Durosimi Jones
-- Eldred Jones
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