Contingent Canons

Drawing on original archival and field research, this Element offers an original and incisive account of the making of African literature.

This Element is for anyone interested in the processes of canon-formation, world literatures in general and African literature in particular. It offers a fresh and exciting perspective on canon-formation and contestation that draws on original archival and field research.This Element explores the mechanisms through which 'African literature', as a market category, has been consecrated within the global literary field. Drawing on archival, textual and field-based research, it proposes that the normative story of African literary writing has functioned to efface a broader material history of African literary production located on and oriented to the continent itself.