In a mere quarter-century, restorative justice has grown from a few scattered experimental projects into a worldwide social movement and field of study. The contributors to this book critically examine restorative justice, identifying the main threats to its integrity and effectiveness. The ground that they cover ranges from victim, offender, and practitioner issues, to the role of the state, to    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 politics,    More >

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 >

Derek Walcott, winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize for literature, has risen from obscure colonial origins to lay claim to a rich cultural heritage. The progeny of Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas come together in his work as they populate his native Caribbean islands; his poetry and plays record their struggles to overcome the ironies of their lives, to establish their authentic "new    More >

Rhys, acclaimed author of Wide Sargasso Sea, Quartet, and other novels treating the alienation of a woman from the Caribbean living in European settings, has been a focus of interest both as a feminist writer and in the context of Caribbean literature. She was honored with the W. H. Smith Award in 1967 and the Council of Great Britain Award for Writers in 1979.    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 >

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 discusses the    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 >

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 sociocultural    More >

This groundbreaking study of prolific Trinidadian writer Sam Selvon includes background essays, interviews with Selvon, and critical assessments of his ten novels and collected short stories. An extensive bibliography and notes on the contributors are included. In addition to Sam Selvon, the contributors to the work include Whitney Balliett, Harold Barratt, Edward Baugh, Frank Birbalsingh, E.K.    More >