From the Publisher
“Professor Toyin Falola has attempted a compelling reflection on the idea of the Nigerian literary tradition with its critique of the potential, achievements, imperfections and the challenges embedded in the complex experience of a cultural imaginary of Nigerian Literature, including the re-production as well as the reception of the literary genius on the African continent and in the diaspora. Literature is held as enervating force and product of the colonial and postcolonial realities of the Nigerian nation. This is a distinguished literary historian’s provocative intervention on the subject of nationhood and the literary tradition.” (Aderemi Raji-Oyelade, Former President, Association of Nigerian Authors)
“This view of Nigerian Literature puts the ideological contentions and contradictions of old in perspective. Toyin Falola, in this effusion, not only charts the course for the reinvention and invention of the Nigerian Nation through its literature but troubles the literary taboos as well as the theoretical postures and leanings in the art of Nigerian literary artists.” (Adedoyin Aguoru, President, African Association for Japanese Studies)
“This fascinating and original piece of scholarship by Nigeria’s most celebrated historian has successfully linked the wide and varied Nigerian literature to the complexities of the nation. The indomitable Toyin Falola maps cogently the cultural, elitist, ideological, feminized and the fetishized aspects of the Nigerian experience. The book masterfully shows us a space that is complicated, inhabited by enigmatic people who see their country as peculiar and unique.” (Bosede Funke Afolayan, University of Lagos, Nigeria, and editor of Nigerian Female Dramatists: Expression, Resistance, Agency)
