| Kommentar |
The Columbia Guide to West African Literature in English (2008), Oyekan Owomoyela explains the gender imbalance of his approach as follows: “male writers predominate in the Guide because in real life they do in fact predominate in literary production” (1). This claim can be easily challenged by pointing to contemporary female authors such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Sefi Atta, or Taiye Selasi, who are at the forefront of West Africa’s thriving literature today. Female writers, among them Flora Nwapa and Ama Atta Aidoo, also shaped the beginnings of West Africa’s Anglophone writing traditions. In this seminar course, we will read four novels by female West African writers from Ghana and Nigeria, two countries with an especially powerful literary heritage and a fascinating contemporary writing scene. Acknowledging the diversity and complexity each author’s work, we will explore shared motifs and concerns which connect these texts from different periods and contexts. Questions which will concern us throughout the semester are: the politics of the family, the rise of urban middle classes in postcolonial societies, the tension between modernity and tradition.
Students are advised to buy the following editions:
Atta, Sefi. Everything Good Will Come. Adlestrop, Arris: 2005.
Aidoo, Ama Ata. Changes. A Love Story. Oxford, Heinemann: 1991.
Darko, Amma. The Housemaid. Oxford, Heinemann: 1998.
Emecheta, Buchi. The Joys of Motherhood. New York, Braziller: 1979.
Additional material will be made available via moodle or, upon request, email. |
