Africa Writes Back to Self: Metafiction, Gender, Sexuality

by Evan Maina Mwangi

The profound effects of colonialism and its legacies on African cultures have led postcolonial scholars of recent African literature to characterize contemporary African novels as, first and foremost, responses to colonial domination by the West. In Africa Writes Back to Self, Evan Maina Mwangi argues instead that the novels are primarily engaged in conversation with each other, particularly over emergent gender issues such as the representation of homosexuality and the disenfranchisement of women by male-dominated governments. He covers the work of canonical novelists Nadine Gordimer, Chinua Achebe, NguÅgiÅ wa Thiong'o, and J. M. Coetzee, as well as popular writers such as Grace Ogot, David Maillu, Promise Okekwe, and Rebeka Njau. Mwangi examines the novels' self-reflexive fictional strategies and their potential to refigure the dynamics of gender and sexuality in Africa and demote the West as the reference point for cultures of the Global South.

360 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2009

Reviews

[Sara Baalbaki]

Even though it was a pretty dense book in terms of content because the author is covering a lot of issues in the book, it was well structured and organized, and that made it easier to read. I recommend this book to everyone interested in African literary studies and literary criticism, but it might be a bit difficult for those that have minimal knowledge of the field because of its specialized vocabulary.

[Dylan Groves · Rating 4 out of 5]

a welcome response to the "african colonial resistance literature" trope.

east africans and south africans feature prominently.