African Literature

Poet, storyteller, scholar, teacher, and statesman, Léon Gontran Damas, born in French Guiana, was a founding father of the negritude movement. This collection offers a wide range of    More >

The son of a Tunisian Jewish family, Yetiv attempts to preserve some of the wisdom contained in a tradition that may be dying out. Each proverb is presented in transliterated Arabic, with    More >

In this witty and ironic reversal of the typical colonial travelogue, Dadié recounts the journey of a bemused African traveler who settles in Rome, continuing his inquiries into the    More >

The first book in a trilogy that continues with Mother Spring and Birth at Dawn, this naturalistic allegory is about two Arabic-speaking police officers who set out in the Atlas Mountains in    More >

A collection of essays and reviews, both favorable and negative, about the charismatic and popular Igbo poet who, at the age of 35, was killed by the advancing Nigerian army during the war    More >

Setting his novel during World War II, Chraïbi opens the door on the protected and well-to- do world of an Arab woman whose role in society is restricted to that of wife and mother. At    More >

These translations of 45 Wolof folktales are remarkable for the way they capture the poignancy, humor, and meaning of their original, oral form. Organized according to their thematic    More >

A woman abandons her newborn baby in a ditch. Soon discovered, the corpse arouses in the local peasants an intense desire to bring the killer to justice—and gives them the excuse to    More >

A masterpiece of modern African literature, The Suns of Independence brilliantly captures the struggles, desires, and dreams of people in a west African country as they live through the    More >

The struggle for liberation from colonial rule in lusophone Africa, which culminated in the creation of several independent nations, has produced a vigorous body of works that are innovative    More >

Includes The Song of Death, The Sultan's Dilemma, and Not a Thing Out of Place, as well as the title play, an absurdist comedy.    More >

Salih's shocking and beautiful novel reveals much about the people on each side of a cultural divide. A brilliant Sudanese student takes his mix of anger and obsession with the West to    More >

Peters searches for themes about African self-identity by exploring images of the mask in the poetry of Senghor, the fiction of Achebe, and the drama of Soyinka. His focus is not on the mask    More >

Because of, and at times in spite of, the distinct quality of Portuguese colonial policy, an original and vibrant lusophone literature exists today in Africa. Burness introduces the    More >