Strategic Transformations in Nigerian Writing

Ato Quayson gives a historical and literary framework for the writers' varied engagements with oral traditions.

This is an innovative and original study which offers a new perspective on a Nigerian literary tradition. Quayson takes issue with the prevalent use of oral tradition in the criticism of Europhone written literature as a kind ofcultural matrix out of which the written text emerged, and the essence of which it embodies. He proposes instead a view of literary tradition as the outcome of numerous, and varied, strategic acts of positioning in relation to indigenous resources - which vary according to the individual writer's project but also according to the larger social and political context. He constructs a historical framework in which to view these strategies as performed by Samuel Johnson in The History of the Yorubas (1921 [1897]), Amos Tutuola (1950s), Soyinka (1960s and 70s) and Ben Okri (1980s and 90s).' - Karin Barber, Senior Lecturer at the Centre of African Studies, University of Birmingham

North America: Indiana U Press