African literary theory and criticism has emerged out of a discourse of nationalism/continentalism constituted in a political and cultural act of resistance. Ironically the components of African nationalist ideology are often derived from the colonial-imperial discourse against which this nationalism… Read More ›
Chinua Achebe (1930 – 2013) is probably both the most widely known and the most representative African novelist. He may very well have written the first African novel of real literary merit—such at least is the opinion of Charles Larson—and he deals… Read More ›
The term “African,” when applied in this essay to the novel and other literary genres, does not include the Arab states of the north or the peoples of European descent who may have settled in Africa. It refers to the… Read More ›
The majority of magical realist writing can be described as postcolonial. That is to say much of it is set in a postcolonial context and written from a postcolonial perspective that challenges the assumptions of an authoritative colonialist attitude. As… Read More ›
A term used to describe the ways in which post-colonial societies take over those aspects of the imperial culture – language, forms of writing, film, theatre, even modes of thought and argument such as rationalism, logic and analysis – that… Read More ›
Anthropological criticism refers, broadly speaking, to a form of criticism that situates the making, dissemination and reception of literature within the conventions and cultural practices of human societies. Such an undertaking has become increasingly suspect in the twentieth century as… Read More ›
African literature, an area where the relationship of the artist with the land is absolutely recognised and understood, covers a huge range of languages, cultures and colonial contexts. Literature in the African continent has its basis mainly in the traditions… Read More ›
Postcolonialism is characterized by the rejection of Western universalism and political imperialism, soon after independence gained by Asian and African countries, and an awareness that the colonizer’s language is permanently tainted and to write in it involves a subjugation to… Read More ›
A critical analysis of the history, culture, literature and modes of discourse on the Third World countries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean Islands and South America, postcolonialism concerns itself with the study of the colonization (which began as early as… Read More ›