The people's right to the novel : war fiction in the postcolony / / Eleni Coundouriotis

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910465849003321
• Autore: Coundouriotis Eleni
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: New York : , : Fordham University Press, , 2014; ©2014
• ISBN: 0-8232-6635-4; 0-8232-6235-9; 0-8232-6236-7
• Edizione: [First edition.]
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (350 p.)
• Disciplina: 823
• Soggetti: African fiction (English) - History and criticism; African fiction (French) - History and criticism; War in literature; Literature and society - Africa; Electronic books.; Africa In literature
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Front matter -- Contents -- List of Figures -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Naturalism, Humanitarianism, and the Fiction of War -- 1. “No Innocents and No Onlookers”: The Uses of the Past in the Novels of Mau Mau -- 2. Toward a People’s History: The Novels of the Nigerian Civil War -- 3. “Wondering Who the Heroes Were”: Zimbabwe’s Novels of Atrocity -- 4. Contesting the New Authenticity: Contemporary War Fiction in Africa -- Afterword -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index
• Sommario/riassunto: This study offers a literary history of the war novel in Africa. Coundouriotis argues that this genre, aimed more specifically at African readers than the continent’s better-known bildungsroman tradition, nevertheless makes an important intervention in global understandings of human rights. The African war novel lies at the convergence of two sensibilities it encounters in European traditions: the naturalist aesthetic and the discourse of humanitarianism, whether in the form of ; sentimentalism or of human rights law. Both these sensibilities are present in culturally hybrid forms in the African war novel, reflecting its syncretism as a narrative practice engaged with the colonial and postcolonial history of the continent. The war novel, Coundouriotis argues, stakes claims to collective rights that contrast with the individualism of the bildungsroman tradition. The genre is a form of people’s history that participates in a political struggle for the rights of the dispossessed.