Focusing on the ways in which men are produced, represented, and problematized in African literary and other cultural expression, Masculinities in African Literary and Cultural Texts represents a ground-breaking intervention in a field that is largely woman-centered. The book, with its multigenre approach, will serve as a vital and much-needed resource for both scholars and    More >

These poems of lamentation and celebration were written and dedicated to individuals—some famous, some unknown—whose lives touched the author in a profound way.  “I discovered,” writes Busia, “that these poems when placed together not only record the lives of those to whom they are dedicated, but in the end also trace my own.”    More >

The Blind Kingdom is a collection of short stories and poetic texts woven together to illustrate an African society on the brink of collapse. Writing in 1960 at a time when Côte d’Ivoire was in chaos after declaring its independence from France, Véronique Tadjo explores themes of love, independence, and renewal as she creates a new world of hope and creativity. Her    More >

Nile Baby tells the story of two quirky young friends who discover a 90-year-old fetus in the laboratory storeroom of their school. Alice and Arnie set out on two very different journeys to return the specimen to its rightful home, leading them to discover not only their absent fathers, but also other buried and surprising roots. Reunited at the end of their adventures, they find that the    More >

This invaluable bilingual collection of more than 7,000 Akan proverbs reveals the nuances of Akan and Asante life and culture. Kwame Anthony Appiah’s introduction to the volume contextualizes the proverbs, revealing the wit and wisdom of the Akan language and demonstrating how the proverbs can be compared    More >

This incisive collection of essays on the legacy of Efua Sutherland, published 11 years after her death, will rekindle an awareness of her life's work as an educator, publisher, artist, and writer. The collection also reflects Sutherland's deep passion for African and Ghanaian culture, as well as theatrical cultures from around the world.

ForeWord Magazine's Reference Book of the Year, 2007!

Ranging from ancient cultures to the present century, from Africa's rich oral traditions to its contemporary fiction, poetry, and drama, this long-awaited comprehensive anthology reflects the enduring themes of African literature.

The selections, drawn from the length and    More >

Amma Darko is revealed in this important collection as a novelist whose work reflects both compelling story-telling talent and unflinching criticism of what Ghana has become as its people are increasingly enmeshed in the network of global capitalism.

The authors critically situate Darko's work within the context of postindependence Ghanaian and other African writers such as Ayi Kwei    More >

This sequel to the award-winning Nervous Conditions traces Tambu's continuing quest to redefine the personal, political, and historical forces at work in her complex world. 

This collection of contemporary love stories by women from Africa and the African Diaspora combines the tentative freshness of budding writers with the confidence of established and award-winning authors.

The anthology debunks preconceived notions about African women as impoverished victims, showing their strength, complexity, and diversity. The stories deal with a range of challenging    More >

A Month and a Day & Letters presents an edited version of "A Detention Diary," Ken Saro-Wiwa's own record of his arrest in July 1993 and the story of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People and the struggle against the Nigerian military dictatorship. Saro-Wiwa's criticisms of the corrupt regime eventually led to his execution, along with eight others, in November    More >

Following on his awarding-winning Mating Birds, Lewis Nkosi's second novel is a tour de force. Nkosi takes us from mansions to mountain hideouts, introducing a dazzling array of characters. Switching from comedy to sensitive observation to action, and with double-dealing operatives and political shenanigans, Underground People blends elements of a political thriller in a    More >

The Cry of Winnie Mandela is a powerful story that links the lives of four "ordinary" South African women with the life of Winnie Mandela. It is the story of five women who wait for their husbands during the long years of struggle against apartheid.

Dangaremba's acclaimed first novel tells of the coming-of-age of Tambu and, through her, also offers a profound portrait of African society. In awarding Nervous Conditions the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Africa in 1989, the judges described the book as "a beautiful and sensitive exploration of the plight and struggle of an African people.... A distinguishing feature of this work    More >

Tawfiq al-Hakim (1898-1987) dedicated much of his long life to a fruitful attempt to advance the fortunes of twentieth century Arabic literature by writing it. This guide to his work provides paths for readers through his multiple literary worlds. Chapters on his personal history, his novels, plays, short stories, and essays, his Islamic feminism, and his theology are enhanced by a discussion of    More >

Though Sahelian culture likely dates back more than five thousand years—encompassing Africa's greatest empires—the Sahel remains little known in the English-speaking world. Redressing this situation, The Desert Shore offers a rich sampling of the contemporary literatures of the region, along with contextualizing chapters by critics from Africa, Europe, and North    More >

Ahmed Bangura argues that a deeply ingrained pattern of prejudice toward Islam in European-language writing on Africa has led to serious misreadings of many West African novels.

Extending Edward Said's study of the orientalist tradition in Western scholarship, Bangura traces the origins of contemporary misunderstandings of African Islam to the discourse of colonial literature. Western critics    More >

Concentrating on issues of power and change, Annie Gagiano's close reading of literary texts by Chinua Achebe, Bessie Head, and Dambudzo Marechera teases out each author's view of how colonialism affected Africa, the contribution of Africans to their own malaise, and above all, the creative, progressive, pragmatic role of many Africans during the colonial and postcolonial periods.

Gagiano    More >

Ngoza, in KwaZulu-Natal—South Africa's most turbulent province—is transformed when clan leader Baba Joshua dies and his headstrong daughter tackles the age-old shibboleths held by traditionalists and gangsters alike.

The reluctant heroine of this novel, Zodwa, finds support from unlikely quarters. A disenchanted ex-ANC guerrilla and a dyed-in-the-wool white supremacist join    More >

Albert Memmi published the first anthology of francophone Maghrebian literature, he expressed his unhappy belief that francophone writing would quickly be eclipsed by Arabic. To the contrary, this volume demonstrates that the francophone writing of North Africa remains vibrant and prolific.

Two distinct periods are evident in contemporary Maghrebian letters, producing the anticolonial works    More >

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The shocking execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa at the hands of the Nigerian government in 1995 stirred new interest in the many facets of his life—as novelist and short story writer, radio and television personality, publisher and entrepreneur, political and environmental activist. This interdisciplinary collection critically assesses Saro-Wiwa’s exceptional life and work from a range of    More >

This anthology presents the voices of a new generation of African poets, drawn from across the continent and representing a wide range of themes, styles, and ideologies. These contemporary voices have been shaped in the realities of postcolonial Africa from the mid-1970s to the present. In contrast to the preceding generation—forged in the years of nationalist movements and    More >

From the appearance of Bound to Violence in the late 1960s, Yambo Ouologuem has been one of Africa’s most controversial writers. For some critics, the young Malian signaled an entire new direction for African letters: a fiercely courageous postindependence literature. For others, his novel revealed too much, bringing to light horrors many preferred to ignore. Today Ouologuem is    More >

Bored housewives, kept in seclusion, smuggling in Harlequin romances. Modish young men transformed into Islamic militants in beards and white robes. A baker unwittingly caught in a web of intrigue, an imam whose faith is tested by urban corruption, a lonely divorcee accused of prostitution—all take part in Merzak Allouache's compelling novel of a society on the brink of    More >

A gentle novel about the enduring conflict between young and old, new and traditional, foreign and native.

Badian tells the story of a village family in an African country under French rule. The family's father and the eldest son revere the customs of their ancestors, while the younger children are strongly attracted by European ways and ideas. The daughter, Kany, has fallen in    More >

As a young widow with two boys to raise, Horia El-Gharib struggled to reconcile tradition and change. She dared to take on a man's role in commerce and trade to protect the future of her sons—but now, all is at risk in the midst of the turmoil of the newly independent regime.

Lion Mountain is the unforgettable story of a stubborn old woman, a one-legged Nubian war hero, and a    More >

It is the 26th day of Ramadan in the year 610, and a handsome man named Muhammad is meditating in a cave on Mount Hira. Fear grips him as he tries to sort out the visions and voices washing over him; and terrified that he is possessed, he leaves the cave to return to Mecca. The day that will transform Muhammad’s life—and change the world—has begun.

That day becomes a fluid    More >

Mongo Beti is the most prolific and widely read author from Cameroon, and his writings have called world attention to political corruption in his native country. These essays cover the three distinct periods of Beti’s greatest activity as a writer—the first, which ran from 1953 to 1958; the re-emergence that began in 1974; and the third phase, which Arnold traces to Beti’s brief    More >

When Mati Unenesyo left for the University of Fearfong to teach creative writing, his friends and family thought that he had climbed from "the mires of a nobody to the crest of a luminous elite." But in Manthaland, the central African country where this story is set, things are not that simple: Mati finds that his new friendship with a former professor is regarded with suspicion in some    More >

This collection of fiction and poetry, written by members of the military forces sent by Castro to help defeat the South Africa-backed regime in Angola, reflects the realities of painful years in Africa. The material is laced together by Burness’ narrative of past and present wars and rebellions.

Poet, activist, teacher, and scholar, Dennis Brutus is one of the foremost names in African literature—as a creative force, a cultural influence, and a personality. Exploring Brutus's life and writings, this collection opens with a biographical introduction to his "art and activism," covering his childhood, his university days, his arrest and imprisonment in 1964–1965, his    More >

In this turbulent novel of shame, violence, and hypocritical morality, the adolescent son of a repudiated mother grows up in a hostile, erotic, bourgeois world, where he must fight for his own soul. Using violence against violence, the young hero seeks to realize his better nature by overcoming the powers of hedonism, religious conformity, and tribalism. First published in French in    More >

After many years abroad, Brahim, the author of stories about a detective (alter-ego) named Ali, returns to Morocco with his pregnant Scottish wife and two sons. Soon to join them are his in-laws, complete with golf clubs and nervous expectations about a mysterious land. In a warm, satirical novel about the misunderstanding between two worlds, Chraïbi pokes fun at both the native Morocco of    More >

Dealing with sexual mutilation, Accad’s lyrical, tragic novel shows woman as prisoner, victim, and target of man’s age-old preoccupation with domination by and fear of women. Set in exploding, agonized Lebanon, the work is Islamic, Christian, modern, and antique in scope. First published in French in 1982.

This new paperback edition includes a preface by the    More >

Yusuf Idris is considered by many to be the greatest contemporary short-story writer working in Arabic. The 17 critical essays in this collection—some by critics in the Arab world and others by Western specialists on modern Arabic fiction and drama—are organized in sections devoted to Idris's short stories, novels, and plays. Each section includes studies that adopt a general    More >

One of the most important literary voices to emerge from The Gambia for several decades, Sallah writes nostalgically about his African roots. This, his third collection, includes elegant, often melodic poems about love, prayer, fate, homesickness, and the contrasts between different places and cultures.

This volume provides a broad and representative selection of critical responses to the work of Ayi Kwei Armah (b. 1939), one of the most provocative and versatile of anglophone West African

The essays gathered here are as various as their subject, dealing with such diverse dimensions of Armah’s writing as narrative technique, symbolism and metaphor, mythology, literary ancestry,    More >

A collection of songs sung by Arab women, compiled by Caspi during field research in the West Bank and Israel. The songs, in English translation, are divided into three sections: bridal songs, lullabies, and lamentations. The work also includes a general introduction and a bibliography.

Eleven essays by Western and Middle Eastern scholars evaluate the work of Naguib Mahfouz, arguably Egypt’s greatest novelist, and the winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature. The first such comprehensive, critical treatment in English, the book considers Mahfouz’s short stories and screenplays, as well as his novels.

The contributors pay particular attention to the    More >

This unique investigation provides the first major account of the explosion of literary talent that began in Nigeria in 1948 and ended as the civil war was intensifying in 1966. The book is structured around interviews with the men and women who led this generation of profound talent, all of whom attended University College, Ibadan, or its successor, the University of Ibadan. Speculating about    More >

European colonialists assumed the prerogative to interpret the experiences of their “charges” and to decide the legitimacy of creative expression among Africans. Yoder examines that assumption, frankly discussing the racism and cultural chauvinism of nineteenth-century France, as well as colonial practices and the reactions to them as reflected in West African novels. Using a    More >

In this fresh look at the troubled, passionate work of an important South African writer and social critic, Balutansky explores Alex La Guma’s five novels in all their dimensions.

Balutansky notes La Guma’s belief that, in order to lead a fulfilling existence, an individual must go beyond introspection and adopt a life that is organized around unity, caring, and sharing.    More >

The final volume in a trilogy that includes The Flutes of Death and Mother Spring, Birth at Dawn extends to the eighth century the story of the arrival of Islam in Morocco and Algeria. First published in French in 1986.

Issues of racial discrimination, imperialist exploitation, and accuracy of observation have long interested Conrad’s critics. As a European writing about imperialism in exotic lands, Conrad offered a vivid, but subjective account of the confrontations between the cultures and peoples of East and West. Though some in Africa have condemned his novels as racist, the books have been used as    More >

Although he was a staunch supporter of French colonialism, Paul Hazoumé in his realistic, sweeping narrative captures the customs and traditions—the soul—of Dahomey. This historical novel, set in the first half of the nineteenth century, depicts a proud and powerful nation at a turning point in its long pattern of wars, slave trade, and human sacrifices—practices that,    More >

Seventeen short stories by such well-known writers as Abdullah, Idris, Mahfouz, Taher, Ibrahim, Sharouni, Fahmy, Sibai, and Haqqi.

The dehumanization of the Arabs who emigrated to "Mother France" is the subject of Chraïbi’s second novel, echoing Simple Past. This time, however, the focus is more on the values and customs of the West, whose promises to the Islamic world appear as a facade for violence and exploitation.

The story unfolds in the mind of Yalaan Waldik, an "Arabo"    More >

Beginning with an epilogue set in the present, this novel quickly moves back to the time of the generation after Muhammad—a time when North Africa, the home of the Berber peoples, was overrun by Arab armies. With strong characters and a compelling sense of place, Chraïbi demonstrates how the Berbers tried to maintain their cultural identity in the face of the overwhelmingly rapid and    More >

Oyono’s third novel is the bittersweet, first-person story of Aki Barnabas, a young Cameroonian scholar who seeks to become “someone” by using the rules of the colonial system to his personal advantage.

Failing in his nearly ten-year effort to win a scholarship to Paris, sacrificing his very self in a futile quest for prestige, Barnabas becomes lost at home and    More >

The manuscript for this novel, written in 1948, was hidden in a file in London for more than thirty years, until unearthed by Bernth Lindfors. The present edition of the book, its first publication other than a limited facsimile edition in 1982, incorporates minor revisions made by Tutuola during a visit to the United States in 1983, when he corrected obvious errors and restructured several    More >

A collection of forty-two poems that depict the pain and pathos, the political and personal struggles that marked South Africa during apartheid. House is acutely sensitive to the sometimes subtle, sometimes explosive tensions of her homeland—and to the hope that must accompany any movement toward liberation.

Eighteen full-page drawings by Selma Waldman are presented as visual    More >

Idris developed a form of expression new to Arabic literary tradition, deliberately distinguishing between the colloquial Arabic spoken by his characters and the classical form that he used as narrator. This innovation at first raised an outcry among Arab critics, who disparaged his deviation from tradition; eventually, however, his work came to be valued as a purely indigenous product and a stark    More >

Poet, storyteller, scholar, teacher, and statesman, Léon Gontran Damas, born in French Guiana, was a founding father of the negritude movement. This collection offers a wide range of essays on the life and career of Damas from his schooling at home and later in Martinique, through his creative years in Paris as a student, writer, and member of the French Chambres du Deputés, to his    More >

"I enjoy playing in the small square between the archway and the takiya [monastery] where the Sufis live. Like all the other children, I admire the mulberry trees in the takiya garden, the only bit of green in the whole neighborhood. Our tender hearts yearn for their dark berries. But it stands like a fortress, this takiya, circled by its garden wall. Its stern gate is broken and always, like    More >

The son of a Tunisian Jewish family, Yetiv attempts to preserve some of the wisdom contained in a tradition that may be dying out. Each proverb is presented in transliterated Arabic, with both a literal English translation and an alternative translation that provides a context more familiar to a Western reader.

In this witty and ironic reversal of the typical colonial travelogue, Dadié recounts the journey of a bemused African traveler who settles in Rome, continuing his inquiries into the fundamental nature of humankind. Part conqueror, part pilgrim, part worshipper, and part critic, the protagonist compares Roman and African customs, traditions, history, and above all, personalities.    More >

The first book in a trilogy that continues with Mother Spring and Birth at Dawn, this naturalistic allegory is about two Arabic-speaking police officers who set out in the Atlas Mountains in search of a revolutionary. Once in this mysterious region, the officers, with their postcolonial, Westernized manners, are challenged by the ferociously suspicious and independent-minded    More >

Acclaimed in both its English translation and its original Arabic version, the title work in this collection has been made into a film, while a second piece, “A Handful of Dates,” is among the most anthologized of modern short stories.    More >

Mongo Beti’s imaginative resources have been compared with those of William Faulkner and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. This sequel to Beti’s Remember Ruben, set during the first year of Cameroonian independence, continues the story of the revolutionary partisan Mor- Zamba after the defeat of the Rubenists by the colonialist-backed African pols.    More >

Setting his novel during World War II, Chraïbi opens the door on the protected and well-to- do world of an Arab woman whose role in society is restricted to that of wife and mother. At the urging of her two sons, she seeks knowledge of the larger world with all its political, economic, and social realities. Soon, she begins to develop and express her own opinions about the ongoing World    More >

A woman abandons her newborn baby in a ditch. Soon discovered, the corpse arouses in the local peasants an intense desire to bring the killer to justice—and gives them the excuse to pry into the lives of the entire community. The primary suspects are a group of migrant workers, and the question of their guilt or innocence soon reveals other kinds of truths. The Sinners is an    More >

A collection of essays and reviews, both favorable and negative, about the charismatic and popular Igbo poet who, at the age of 35, was killed by the advancing Nigerian army during the war of Biafran secession.

The book begins with a memorial essay by Okigbo’s good friend Chinua Achebe. Other contributors examine the rich imagery that Okigbo drew from nature, history, and    More >

These translations of 45 Wolof folktales are remarkable for the way they capture the poignancy, humor, and meaning of their original, oral form. Organized according to their thematic patterns, the stories reveal much about the Wolof people’s relationship with their environment, their beliefs about causality, and their social values, morality, and customs. Including a general introduction    More >

Solomon Mutswairo is one of southern Africa’s most prominent contemporary writers. Here, he gives us a historical novel about Zimbabwe’s famed nineteenth-century prophet, Chaminuka, a man who sacrificed his life for the cause of peace.

Mutswairo tells a tragic tale about deception and the dislocation caused by the “divide and conquer” strategies    More >

The struggle for liberation from colonial rule in lusophone Africa, which culminated in the creation of several independent nations, has produced a vigorous body of works that are innovative in both theme and language.

This collection of critical essays, accompanied by more than 30 illustrations and photographs, covers a range of literary forms (both oral and written) and also    More >

Includes The Song of Death, The Sultan's Dilemma, and Not a Thing Out of Place, as well as the title play, an absurdist comedy.

Salih's shocking and beautiful novel reveals much about the people on each side of a cultural divide. A brilliant Sudanese student takes his mix of anger and obsession with the West to London, where he has affairs with women who are similarly obsessed with the mysterious East. Life, ecstasy, and death share the same moment in time. First published in Arabic in 1969.    More >

The life of a young, ambitious Cairo journalist as seen through the eyes of the two women who love him and the two colleagues who befriend him, only to be betrayed. First published in Arabic. 

Peters searches for themes about African self-identity by exploring images of the mask in the poetry of Senghor, the fiction of Achebe, and the drama of Soyinka. His focus is not on the mask as a physical object, but as a concept—a dynamic interplay that involves both the mask and its wearer. Within this interplay, he finds important insights about Africanness as defined by three of the    More >

Because of, and at times in spite of, the distinct quality of Portuguese colonial policy, an original and vibrant lusophone literature exists today in Africa. Burness introduces the too-little- known work of Angola’s Luandino Viera, Agostinho Neto, Geraldo Bessa Victor, and Mario Antonio, Cape Verde’s Baltasar Lopes, and Mozambique’s Luis Bernardo Honwana.

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Tutuola, Nigeria’s first novelist to write in English, is one of the most controversial of African authors. His six books have drawn reactions ranging from delirious enthusiasm to amused indifference to undisguised contempt. At any given time, his work might be reviled at home and respected abroad—or vice versa. His writing, however, does not seem much affected by the controversies,    More >