Ernest N. Emenyonu 
ALT 27 New Novels in African Literature Today 

This issue of African Literature Today focuses on new novels by emerging as well as established African novelists.


This is a seminal work that discusses the validity of the perception that the new generation of African novelists is remarkably different in vision, style, and worldview from the older generation. The contention is that the oldergeneration novelists who were too close to the colonial period in Africa had invariably made culture-conflict and little else their dominant thematic concern while the younger generation novelists are more versatile in their thematic preoccupations, and are more global in their vision and style. Do the facts in the novels justify and validate these claims? The 13 papers in this volume have been carefully selected to consider these issues.

Brenda Cooper a renowned literary scholar from Cape Town writes on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s
Purple Hibiscus, while Charles Nnolim writes about Adichie’s more recent novel
Half of a Yellow Sun; Omar Sougou of Universite Gaston Berger, Senegal discusses ‚ambivalent inscriptions‘ in Buchi Emecheta’s later novels; Clement Okafor of the University of Maryland, addresses the theme of ‚racial memory‘ in Isidore Okpewho’s
Call Me By My Rightful Name, juxtaposed between the world of the old and the realities of the present. Joseph Mc Laren, Hofstra University, New York, discusses Ngugi’s latest novel,
Wizard of the Crow, while Machiko Oike, Hiroshima University, Japan looksat a new theme in African adolescent literature, ‚youth in an era of HIV/AIDS‘. There is abundant evidence of the contrasts and diversities which characterize the African novel not only geographically, but also ideologically andgenerationally.


ERNEST EMENYONU is Professor of the Department of Africana Studies University of Michigan-Flint.


Nigeria: HEBN

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Editorial article: The African novel in the 21st century: sustaining the gains of the 20th century – Ernest N. Emenyonu

Resurgent spirits, Catholic echoes of Igbo & petals of purple: the syncretised world of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s
Purple Hibiscus – Brenda Cooper

Ambivalent inscriptions: women, youth & diasporic identity in Buchi Emecheta’s later fiction – Omar Sougou

The interrupted dance: racial memory in Isidore Okpewho’s
Call Me By My Rightful Name – Clement Okafor

The Ivorian crisis & Ahmadou Kourouma’s posthumous political novel
Quand on refuse, on dit non – Sery Bailly

Women as the ‚voice of the people’& the western audience: Ngugi’s
Wizard of the Crow – Joseph Mc Laren

The
ankh &
maat: symbols of successful revolution in Ayi Kwei Armah’s
Osiris Rising – Sophie Akhuemokhan

A new African youth novel in the era of HIV/AIDS: an analysis of Unity Dow’s
Far & beyon‘ – Machiko Oike

The prison of Nigerian woman: female complicity in Sefi Atta’s
Everything Good Will Come – Florence Orabueze

Manufacturing skin for Somalia’s history: Nuruddin Farah’s deep hurt in
Links – Tej N. Dhar

A Zimbabwean ethic of humanity: Tsitsi Dangarembga’s
The Book of Not & the
unhu philosophy of personhood: – Ada U. Azodo

Coming to America: Ike Oguine’s
A Squatter’s Tale & the Nigerian/African immigrant’s narrative – Christopher Okonkwo

War discourse as fictional narrative: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s
Half of a Yellow Sun – Charles Nnolim

Reviews – James Gibbs

Über den Autor

Ernest N. Emenyonu is Professor Emeritus of Africana Studies at the University of Michigan-Flint, USA. He is Series Editor of African Literature Today. His publications include A Companion to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2017), Emerging Perspectives on Nawal El Saadawi (2010), and the children’s book Uzoechi: A Story of African Childhood (2012).