Title Details
176 Pages
21.6 x 14 cm
Series: African Literature Today
Series Vol. Number:
41
Imprint: James Currey
ALT 41
African Literature in African Languages
- Description
- Contents
- Author
Interrogates and explores African literature in African languages today, and the continuing interfaces between works in indigenous languages and those written in European languages or languages of colonizers.
Sixty years after the Conference of African Writers of English Expression at Makerere University, the dominance in the global canon of African literatures written in European languages over those in indigenous languages continues to be an issue. This volume of ALT re-examines this central question of African literatures to ask, 'What is the state of African literatures in African languages today?' Contributors discuss the translation of Gurnah's novel Paradise to Swahili, and Osemwegie's Ọrọ Epic to English, and Wolof wrestlers' panegyrics. They analyse Edo eco-critical poetry, and the poetics of Igbo mask poetry, and morality in early prose fiction in indigenous Nigerian languages. Other essays contribute a semiotic analysis of Duruaku's A Matter of Identity, and the decolonization of trauma in Uwem Akpan's Say You're One of Them. Overall, the volume paints a complex image of African cultural production in indigenous languages, especially in the ways Africa's oral performance traditions remain resilient in the face of a seemingly undiminished presence of non-African language literary traditions.
Sixty years after the Conference of African Writers of English Expression at Makerere University, the dominance in the global canon of African literatures written in European languages over those in indigenous languages continues to be an issue. This volume of ALT re-examines this central question of African literatures to ask, 'What is the state of African literatures in African languages today?' Contributors discuss the translation of Gurnah's novel Paradise to Swahili, and Osemwegie's Ọrọ Epic to English, and Wolof wrestlers' panegyrics. They analyse Edo eco-critical poetry, and the poetics of Igbo mask poetry, and morality in early prose fiction in indigenous Nigerian languages. Other essays contribute a semiotic analysis of Duruaku's A Matter of Identity, and the decolonization of trauma in Uwem Akpan's Say You're One of Them. Overall, the volume paints a complex image of African cultural production in indigenous languages, especially in the ways Africa's oral performance traditions remain resilient in the face of a seemingly undiminished presence of non-African language literary traditions.
INTRODUCTION
African Literature in African Languages: Orality and the Burden of Modernity
CHIJI AKỌMA & NDUKA OTIONO
ARTICLES
Pictures of Materialism in the Benin Ecological Worldview: Eco-Critical Poems of Osemwengie Ero
KOLA EKE AND EDAFE MUKORO
The Swahili Mtapta: Exploring Translation in Abdulrazak Gurnah's Paradise
IDA HADJIVAYANIS
Ikponmwosa Osemwegie's Ọrọ Epic and Translation: The Past and Prospects of Edo Literature
UYILAWA USUANLELE
The Panegyric of the Champion: How Wolof Wrestlers Borrowed from Female Oral Genres to Win in and Outside the Arena
MARAME GUEYE
"A People's Firewood Cooks for them": The Contextual Prosody of Igbo Mask Poetry and Mbem Poetics
CHIKE OKOYE and JULIET IFUNANYA OKEYIKA
Reclaiming the Muted Voices of Xhosa Literature: A Personal Testament
JEFF OPLAND
LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
Five Poems
'Monologue Written After Watching a Robin Lift from a Tree Branch'
'I Am on a Road and My Mouth is Full of Questions'
'What the Lord Said'
'Uriah in the Bardo'
'Witness as a Foot Mat'
Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto
Three Poems
'Lockdown in Biafra'
'The Prison Door'
'Kyphosis'
Amaka Blossom Chime
Four Poems
'Ambitious'
'Shake It Off'
'Academia'
'Ahoa, 2022'
Blessing Ezinne Okah
'Pulse on Martin Niemöller' (Poem)
Alexander Opicho
Two Poems
'Eons Before'
'What?!'
Stephen Oladele Solanke
'Wild Grief' (Poem)
Aisha Umar
'Ties that Gag' (Short Story)
Felicia Moh
FEATURED ARTICLES
Costume as Mystico--Metaphoric Communication in Toni Duruaku's A Matter of Identity: A Semiotic Analysis
UKACHI WACHUKU
Decolonizing Trauma Studies: The Recognition-Solidarity Nexus in Uwem Akpan's Say You're One of Them
CHIJIOKE ONAH
TRIBUTES
Remembering Gerald Moore
JAMES GIBBS
REVIEWS
Akachi Adimora Ezeigbo, Do Not Burn My Bones & Other Stories
KUFRE USANGA
Akachi Adimora Ezeigbo, Broken Bodies, Damaged Souls
KUFRE USANGA
Al-Bishak, BLACK PAPYRUS: Global Origins of Writing and Written Literature Traced to Black Africa
INIOBONG I. UKO
Olu Obafemi, Ajon! (The Legend Who Made a King/Dom)
KUFRE USANGA
African Literature in African Languages: Orality and the Burden of Modernity
CHIJI AKỌMA & NDUKA OTIONO
ARTICLES
Pictures of Materialism in the Benin Ecological Worldview: Eco-Critical Poems of Osemwengie Ero
KOLA EKE AND EDAFE MUKORO
The Swahili Mtapta: Exploring Translation in Abdulrazak Gurnah's Paradise
IDA HADJIVAYANIS
Ikponmwosa Osemwegie's Ọrọ Epic and Translation: The Past and Prospects of Edo Literature
UYILAWA USUANLELE
The Panegyric of the Champion: How Wolof Wrestlers Borrowed from Female Oral Genres to Win in and Outside the Arena
MARAME GUEYE
"A People's Firewood Cooks for them": The Contextual Prosody of Igbo Mask Poetry and Mbem Poetics
CHIKE OKOYE and JULIET IFUNANYA OKEYIKA
Reclaiming the Muted Voices of Xhosa Literature: A Personal Testament
JEFF OPLAND
LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
Five Poems
'Monologue Written After Watching a Robin Lift from a Tree Branch'
'I Am on a Road and My Mouth is Full of Questions'
'What the Lord Said'
'Uriah in the Bardo'
'Witness as a Foot Mat'
Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto
Three Poems
'Lockdown in Biafra'
'The Prison Door'
'Kyphosis'
Amaka Blossom Chime
Four Poems
'Ambitious'
'Shake It Off'
'Academia'
'Ahoa, 2022'
Blessing Ezinne Okah
'Pulse on Martin Niemöller' (Poem)
Alexander Opicho
Two Poems
'Eons Before'
'What?!'
Stephen Oladele Solanke
'Wild Grief' (Poem)
Aisha Umar
'Ties that Gag' (Short Story)
Felicia Moh
FEATURED ARTICLES
Costume as Mystico--Metaphoric Communication in Toni Duruaku's A Matter of Identity: A Semiotic Analysis
UKACHI WACHUKU
Decolonizing Trauma Studies: The Recognition-Solidarity Nexus in Uwem Akpan's Say You're One of Them
CHIJIOKE ONAH
TRIBUTES
Remembering Gerald Moore
JAMES GIBBS
REVIEWS
Akachi Adimora Ezeigbo, Do Not Burn My Bones & Other Stories
KUFRE USANGA
Akachi Adimora Ezeigbo, Broken Bodies, Damaged Souls
KUFRE USANGA
Al-Bishak, BLACK PAPYRUS: Global Origins of Writing and Written Literature Traced to Black Africa
INIOBONG I. UKO
Olu Obafemi, Ajon! (The Legend Who Made a King/Dom)
KUFRE USANGA
Hardcover
9781847013460
December 2023
£65.00 / $95.00
Ebook (EPDF)
9781805431077
December 2023
£24.99 / $29.95
Forthcoming
Ebook (EPUB)
9781805431084
December 2023
£24.99 / $29.95
Forthcoming
Title Details
176 Pages
2.16 x 1.4 cm
Series: African Literature Today
Series Vol. Number:
41
Imprint: James Currey
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