The Oxford History of the Novel in English: The Novel in Africa and the Caribbean since 1950

by Simon Gikandi (Editor)

Overview

Why did the novel take such a long time to emerge in the colonial world? And, what cultural work did it come to perform in societies where subjects were not free and modes of social organization diverged from the European cultural centers where the novel gained its form and audience? Answering these questions and more, Volume 11, The Novel in Africa and the Caribbean since 1950 explores the institutions of cultural production that exerted influence in late colonialism, from missionary schools and metropolitan publishers to universities and small presses. How these structures provoke and respond to the literary trends and social peculiarities of Africa and the Caribbean impacts not only the writing and reading of novels in those regions, but also has a transformative effect on the novel as a global phenomenon.

Together, the volume's 32 contributing experts tell a story about the close relationship between the novel and the project of decolonization, and explore the multiple ways in which novels enable readers to imagine communities beyond their own and thus made this form of literature a compelling catalyst for cultural transformation. The authors show that, even as the novel grows in Africa and the Caribbean as a mark of the elites' mastery of European form, it becomes the essential instrument for critiquing colonialism and for articulating the new horizons of cultural nationalism. Within this historical context, the volume examines works by authors such as Chinua Achebe, Nadine Gordimer, George Lamming, Jamaica Kincaid, V.S. Naipaul, Zoe Wicomb, J. M. Coetzee, and many others.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199765096
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	10/31/2016
Series:	Oxford History of the Novel in English
Pages:	608
Product dimensions:	9.80(w) x 6.90(h) x 1.90(d)

About the Author

Simon Gikandi is Robert Schirmer Professor of English at Princeton University. His previous books include Slavery and the Culture of Taste (2011), Ngugi wa Thiong'o (2004), Writing in Limbo: Modernism and Caribbean Literature (1992), and Maps of Englishness: Writing Identity in the Culture of Colonialism (1996),. He is also the editor of The Encyclopedia of African Literature (2009) and was editor of PMLA, the official journal of the Modern Languages Association (MLA), from 2011-2016.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

List of Contributors

General Editor's Preface

Introduction

Editorial Note

Part I: The Institution of the Novel in Africa and the Carribean

1. The Reinvention of the Novel in Africa
Simon Gikandi and Maurice Vambe

2. Cultures of Print in the Caribbean
Gail Low

3. The Novel and Decolonization in Africa
Mpalive-Hangson Msiska

4. The Novel and Decolonization in the Caribbean
Supriya Nair

Part II: Geographies of the Novel

5. The Novel in African Languages
Alena Rettovà

6. Expatriate Writers
Simon Lewis

7. The City and the Village: Geographies of Fiction in Africa
Jennifer Wenzel

8. Geographies of Migration in the Caribbean
J. Dillon Brown


PART III. The Novel and Cultural Politics

9. Women Novelists in Africa and the Caribbean
Elaine Savory

10. Gender and Sexuality in Caribbean Fiction
Alison Donnell

11. Gender and Sexuality and Africa Fiction
Brenna Munro

12. The Novel and Apartheid
Andrew van der Vlies

13. The Novel and Human Rights
Joseph Slaughter


Part IV: The Novel, Orality, and Popular Culture

14. Popular Fiction in Africa and the Caribbean
Jane Bryce

15. Oral and Popular Cultures in the African Novel
James Ogude

16. Oral and Popular Cultures in the Caribbean
Natasha Barnes

Part V. Styles and Genres

17. The Novel and History in Africa
Eleni Coundrioutis

18. The Novel and History in the Caribbean
Nana Wilson-Tagoe

19. Romance and Realism
Yogita Goya

20. Modernism and Modernist Fiction
Tim Watson

21. Autobiography and Autobiographical Fiction in the Caribbean
Sandra Pouchet Paquet

22. Autobiography in Africa
Kgomotso Michael Masemola

23. Short Stories in the Caribbean
Victor Ramraj

24. Short Stories in Africa
Antonia Kalu

25. Detective Fiction
Matthew Christensen


Part VI: New Frontiers

26. African Fiction in a Global Context
Peter Kalliney

27. Caribbean Fiction in a Global Context
Raphael Dalleo

28. Experimental Fictions
Evan Mwangi

29. The Novel in Translation
Shaden Tageldin


Part VII: Critical Understandings

30. The Novel and the Question of Language
Chantal Zabus

31. Criticism of the Novel in the Caribbean
Simon Gikandi

32. The Novel in Africa: Theories and Debates
Gaurav Desai

Composite Bibliography

Index of Authors and Primary Texts

General Index