Ganapathy, Maya. “Sidestepping the Political ‘Graveyard of Creativity’: Polyphonic Narratives and Re-envisioning the Nation-State in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun.” Research in African Literatures 47, no. 3 (2016): 88–105. https://doi.org/10.2979/reseafrilite.47.3.06.

Although critics of the contemporary anglophone African novel acknowledge its transnational themes, they often associate it with an individualism that is harmoniously reconciled with national responsibility and, therefore, the eventual rehabilitation of the state. These critics’ implicit valorization of the nation-state as a site of shared affective ties overlooks the African novel’s dismantling of a geographically and ideologically determined writerly identity. This essay argues that a narratological approach elucidates the outlines of an imagined state in the African realist novel and the challenges of imagining democracy. Chinua Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah links reform to inclusive social dialogue. Half of a Yellow Sun resuscitates this possibility through its structurally complex representation of authorship. Echoing Anthills, Adichie’s novel extends the role of national storyteller to peripheral voices and appears to forecast state rehabilitation. However, this image of inclusivity belies its desire to consolidate, in nationalistic terms, a volatile middle-class identity.

[Source: Article abstract].

Achebe, Chinua. “The African Writer and the English Language,” in Colonial Discourse and Post- Colonial Theory: A Reader, edited by Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman, 428-434. Routledge, 1994.

“In June 1952, there was a writers' gathering at Makerere, impressively styled: 'A Conference of African Writers of English Expression'. Despite this sonorous and rather solemn title, it turned out to be a very lively affair and a very exciting and useful experience for many of us. But there was something which we tried to do and failed - that was to define 'African literature' satisfactorily. Was it literature produced in Africa or about Africa? Could African literature be on any subject, or must it have an African theme? Should it embrace the whole continent or south of the Sahara, or just Black Africa? And then the question of language. Should it be in indigenous African languages, or should it include Arabic, English, French, Portuguese, Afrikaans, et cetera?”

[Source: excerpt from chapter]

Zell, Hans M., and Helene Silver, and Barbara Abrash. A Reader's Guide to African Literature. New York, Africana Publishing Corporation, 1971

An annotated listing of outstanding works of African literature as well as anthologies, bibliographies, and critical works by English and French-speaking writers.

[Source: Books.google.ca].

Thiong’o, Ngugi wa. Decolonising the Mind: the politics of language in African literature. London, James Currey, 1986.

Decolonising the Mind is a collection of essays about language and its constructive role in national culture, history, and identity. The book, which advocates for linguistic decolonization, is one of Ngũgĩ’s best-known and most-cited non-fiction publications, helping to cement him as a pre-eminent voice theorizing the “language debate” in post-colonial studies.

[Source: ngugiwathiongo.com]

Palber, Mai (ed) Encounter Images in the meetings between Africa and Europe. Nordic Africa Institute, 2001.

In 1995, the Nordic Africa Institute initiated a research project on cultural aspects of development and Nordic-African relations. One of the aims was to contribute to providing other images of Africa than the negative images of misery, war and catastrophes often conveyed by the mass media. Another was to encourage cultural aspects of change in Africa, and the dynamics of cultural production itself It is indisputable that negative images of Africa increasingly dominate everyday reporting and therefore public opinion too. The generalised pessimistic pictures are in stark contrast to what those of us have experienced who have had the opportunity to visit Africa and work there. It was important not only to encourage alternatives to stereotypes and generalisations, which portrayed Africans as helpless victims, but also to try to understand how and why, and to what extent these images had developed. This was the theme of the first conference organised within the new project on culture, coordinated by Mai Palmberg. This research project was called "Cultural Images in and of Africa," and the seminar dealt primarily with the images of Africa developed in Europe. A selection of edited papers from this seminar is presented here...

[Source: Publisher as Culled from Amazon.com].

Nnolim, Charles E. Literature, Literary Criticism and National Development. Malthouse Press, 2016.

The lectures in this book were delivered at significant points in Professor Nnolim's career. 'Literature and the Common Welfare' (1988) was his inaugural lecture, his declaration that he had come of age as an academic, as a young Professor of literature. In August 2000, he delivered 'Literature, the Arts and Cultural Development' to announce his induction as a member of the Nigerian Academy of Letters in which he was finally admitted as a Fellow in 2005. In this lecture, Nnolim makes strong claims about the validity of literature in Nigeria's national life. In August, 2007, Professor Nnolim delivered 'The Writer's Responsibility and Literature in National Development'. Here here-emphasizes the importance of literary studies in Nigeria's national life and goes on to lament the total neglect of Nigeria's artists, writers, and world class intellectuals in national life. The fourth lecture, 'Morning Yet on Criticism Day: The Criticism of African Literature in the Twentieth Century', was given as a laureate of the Nigerian National Merit Award, 2009. It unifies Professor Nnolim's various pleas for the role of literature in national development but particularly re-emphasizing the problem of language in Nigeria's creative writing and urging governmental intervention in the matter.

[Culled from Amazon.com].

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