Capturing the diversity of African writing from across the continent, this important anthology draws together well-established authors and the best of new writers.
From the harsh realities of South Africa, elegantly described by Nobel Prize winner Nadine Gordimer, to the fantastic world of Booker Prize winner Ben Okri and from the magic realism of Mozambican Mia Couto to the surreal world of Ghanaian Kojo Laing, the editors have distilled the essence of contemporary African writing. Blending the supernatural and the secular, the market-place and the shrine, this anthology gives the reader...

This book provides a detailed examination of the writings of Chinua Achebe, Africa's best-known and most widely-read author, shortlisted for the 1987 Booker Prize. Dr Innes studies his writings, lectures and activities chronologically, in the context of Nigerian culture and politics and their interaction with Western cultures and powers. Her analysis goes beyond that of previously published studies, to examine Achebe's short stories, essays and poetry, and his most recent publications, Anthills of the Savannah (1987) and Hopes and Impediments (1988). Particular emphasis is placed on Achebe's...

The past century has witnessed the extraordinary flowering of fiction, poetry and drama from countries previously colonised by Britain, an output which has changed the map of English literature. This introduction, from a leading figure in the field, explores a wide range of Anglophone post-colonial writing from Africa, Australia, the Caribbean, India, Ireland and Britain. Lyn Innes compares the ways in which authors shape communal identities and interrogate the values and representations of peoples in newly independent nations. Placing its emphasis on literary rather than theoretical texts,...

The past century has witnessed the extraordinary flowering of fiction, poetry and drama from countries previously colonised by Britain, an output which has changed the map of English literature. This introduction, from a leading figure in the field, explores a wide range of Anglophone post-colonial writing from Africa, Australia, the Caribbean, India, Ireland and Britain. Lyn Innes compares the ways in which authors shape communal identities and interrogate the values and representations of peoples in newly independent nations. Placing its emphasis on literary rather than theoretical texts,...

Now updated and available in paperback, this is the first extended study of black and Asian writing in Britain over the last 250 years. Beginning with authors who arrived as immigrants or slaves in the mid-eighteenth century, Innes includes a detailed discussion of works that were often enormously popular in their own time but are almost unknown to contemporary readers. Innes's fascinating study reveals a history of vigorous and fertile interaction between black, Asian and white intellectuals and communities, and an enormously rich and varied literary culture which was already in existence...