This comparative literary study provides intriguing social and political issues and discusses the African sense of national identity, patriotism, and egalitarian ideals in stylistic terms. The book examines universal concerns and new trends in national literature with reference to academic discourse, aesthetic quality, the discovery of new ideas, and layers of poetic meanings. The indigenous genres are placed in a New Historicist context to show the way the literary landscape, cultural, political, and historical relationships are configured through foregrounding intellectual correlations....

Lewis Nkosi's influence as both a South African writer and critic has been profound. His significance stems from the fact that he was one of the very few surviving members of the Drum generation of writers of the 1950s; one who continued to write throughout the apartheid and post-apartheid decades. As an author of plays, critical essays, and novels, Nkosi's voice is preserved in Letters to My Native Soil, which collects correspondence between the writer and others, and provides a valuable insight into a working writer's life in Europe and at home. The book is illustrated with personal...