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Theory of African Literature

Implications for Practical Criticism

Chidi Amuta author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Published:15th Jun '17

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Theory of African Literature cover

A classic work that overturns conventional assessments of African literature, offering a unique contribution to literary criticism.

This groundbreaking work, first published in 1989, was one of the first to challenge the conventional critical assessment of African literature, and remains highly influential today. Amuta's key argument is that African literature can be discussed only within the wider framework of the dismantling of colonial rule and Western hegemony in Africa. In exploring the possibility of a dialectical, alternative critical base, he draws upon both classical Marxist aesthetics and the theories of African culture espoused by Fanon, Cabral and Ngugi. From these explorations, Amuta derives a new language of criticism, which is then applied to works by modern African writers as diverse as Achebe, Ousmane, Agostinho Neto and Dennis Brutus. Amuta's highly original and innovative approach remains relevant not only for assessing the literature of developing countries, but for Marxist and postcolonial theories of literary criticism more generally. The author's elegance of argument and clarity of exposition makes this a distinguished and lasting contribution to debates around cultural expression in postcolonial Africa.

Amuta’s monograph remains irreplaceable in being the very first systematic attempt to give us a cognitive map of where African literary theory came from. * Biodun Jeyifo, from the Foreword *

ISBN: 9781786990068

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 248g

224 pages

2nd New edition