1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910807927203321

Titolo

Style in African literature [[electronic resource] ] : essays on literary stylistics and narrative styles / / edited by J.K.S. Makokha, Ogone John Obiero and Russell West-Pavlov

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Amsterdam ; ; New York, : Editions Rodopi, 2012

ISBN

94-012-0755-0

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (444 p.)

Collana

Internationale Forschungen zur allgemeinen und vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft ; ; 154

Altri autori (Persone)

MakokhaJ. K. S

ObieroOgone John

West-PavlovRussell <1964->

Disciplina

820.996

Soggetti

African literature (English) - History and criticism

African literature - 20th century - History and criticism

African literature - 21st century - History and criticism

Style, Literary

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.

Nota di contenuto

pt. I. General perspectives -- pt. II. Perspectives on fiction -- pt. III. Perspectives on orature and poetry -- pt. IV. Perspectives on drama and theatre.

Sommario/riassunto

Postcolonial and contemporary African literatures have always been marked by an acute sensitivity to the politics of language, an attentiveness inscribed in the linguistic fabric of their own modes of expression. It is curious however, that despite the prevalence of a much-touted ‘linguistic turn’ in twentieth century theory and cultural production, language has frequently been neglected by literary studies in general. Even more curiously, postcolonial literary studies, an erstwhile emergent and now established discipline which has from the outset contained important elements of linguistic critique, has eschewed any sustained engagement with this topic. This absence is salient in the study of African literatures, despite, for instance, the prominence of orature in the African literary tradition right up to the present day, and sporadic meditations on the part of such luminaries as



Achebe and Ngũgĩ. Beyond this, however, there has been little scholarly work attuned to the multifarious aspects of language and linguistic politics in the study of African literature. The present volume aims to rectify such lacunae by making a substantial interdisciplinary and transcultural contribution to the gradual reinstatement of the ‘linguistic turn’ in African literary studies. The volume focuses variously on postcolonial and transcultural African literatures, areas of literary production where the confluence of several languages, whether indigenous and (post)colonial in the first case, and local and global in the second case, appears to be a central and decisive factor in the formation and transformation of the continent and its peoples’ cultural identities.