Bearing Witness: Readers, Writers, and the Novel in NigeriaGreed, frustrated love, traffic jams, infertility, politics, polygamy. These--together with depictions of traditional village life and the impact of colonialism made familiar to Western readers through Chinua Achebe's writing--are the stuff of Nigerian fiction. Bearing Witness examines this varied content and the determined people who, against all odds, write, publish, sell, and read novels in Africa's most populous nation. |
From inside the book
... ethnic blocs and represent minority group interests . New constitution drafted , based on American system ; re- quires political parties to have national , not just regional , support . Continued industrialization , devel- opment of ...
... ethnic groups ( some count as many as 400 ) , each with its distinct language . Over the colonial period , which was less than fifty years long for Nigeria as a whole , people who spoke different languages , practiced different forms of ...
... ethnic group , traditional political authority had been dif- fuse . No one higher than the village level could demand obedience , and even here village councils , not chiefs , made the key decisions . Indirect rule was far more ...
... ethnic group was dominant in each region — the Yoruba in the west , the Igbo in the east , and the Hausa - Fulani in the north — but all three contained dozens of minority groups jealously guarding their cul- tures and their political ...
... ethnic , cross - regional Nigerian identity is one that the novelists themselves promote . Most Niger- ian authors recognize that their books are unlikely to be read in the West , or even in Anglophone Africa , but they might hope to ...
Contents
3 | |
CHAPTER 2 The Nigerian Fiction Complex | 26 |
CHAPTER 3 Nigerian Novels | 120 |
CHAPTER 4 Capturing the Past and Inventing the Future | 269 |
APPENDIX A Nigerian novels | 275 |
APPENDIX B Nigerian authors | 288 |
APPENDIX C Coding forms | 292 |
NOTES | 297 |
BIBLIOGRAPHY | 323 |
INDEX | 333 |
Other editions - View all
Bearing Witness: Readers, Writers, and the Novel in Nigeria Wendy Griswold No preview available - 2000 |