This groundbreaking work was one of the first to challenge the conventional critical assessment of African literature, and, it remains as highly influential on our understanding of African literature as when it was first published. In it, Chidi Amuta argues that African literature is best approached within the wider framework of the dismantling of colonial rule and Western hegemony in Africa. Amuta draws upon both classical Marxist aesthetics and the theories of African culture espoused by Frantz Fanon, Amilcar Cabral, and Ngugi wa Thiong'o in order to establish a new language of criticism,...

This groundbreaking work was one of the first to challenge the conventional critical assessment of African literature, and, it remains as highly influential on our understanding of African literature as when it was first published. In it, Chidi Amuta argues that African literature is best approached within the wider framework of the dismantling of colonial rule and Western hegemony in Africa. Amuta draws upon both classical Marxist aesthetics and the theories of African culture espoused by Frantz Fanon, Amilcar Cabral, and Ngugi wa Thiong'o in order to establish a new language of criticism,...