The Novel in Africa and the Caribbean since 1950

609 Pages·2016·3.33 MB·English

by  Simon Gikandi

the oxford history of the novel in english
The Novel in Africa and the Caribbean Since 1950
The Oxford History of the Novel in English
General Editor: Patrick Parrinder
Volumes Published and in Preparation
1. Prose Fiction in English from the Origins of Print to 1750, edited by Thomas Keymer
2. English and British Fiction, 1750‒1820, edited by Peter Garside and Karen O’Brien
3. The Nineteenth- Century Novel, 1820‒1880, edited by John Kucich and Jenny
Bourne Taylor
4. The Reinvention of the British and Irish Novel, 1880‒1940, edited by Patrick Parrinder
and Andrzej Gąsiorek
5. The American Novel to 1870, edited by J. Gerald Kennedy and Leland S. Person
6. The American Novel, 1870‒1940, edited by Priscilla Wald and Michael A. Elliott
7. British and Irish Fiction since 1940, edited by Peter Boxall and Bryan Cheyette
8. American Fiction since 1940, edited by Cyrus R. K. Patell and Deborah
Lindsay Williams
9. The World Novel in English to 1950, edited by Ralph Crane, Jane Stafford,
and Mark Williams
10. The Novel in English in Asia since 1945, edited by Alex Tickell
11. The Novel in Africa and the Caribbean Since 1950, edited by Simon Gikandi
12. The Novel in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the South Pacific since 1950,
edited by Coral Ann Howells, Paul Sharrad, and Gerry Turcotte
the oxford history of the novel in english
Volume Eleven
The Novel in Africa
and the Caribbean
since 1950
Edited by
Simon Gikandi
1
1
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the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
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Press in the UK and certain other countries.
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
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© Oxford University Press 2016
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Library of Congress Cataloging-i n- Publication Data
Names: Gikandi, Simon, editor.
Title: The novel in Africa and the Caribbean since 1950 / edited by Simon Gikandi.
Description: New York : Oxford University Press, 2016. | Series: The Oxford
history of the novel in English ; volume 11 | Includes bibliographical
references and indexes.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015042362 | ISBN 9780199765096 (cloth)
Subjects: LCSH: African fiction (English)—H istory and criticism. | Caribbean
fiction (English)— History and criticism. | West Indian fiction
(English)— History and criticism. | English fiction—2 0th century— History
and criticism. | English fiction— 21st century— History and criticism. |
Africa— In literature. | Caribbean Area— In literature. | West Indies— In
literature.
Classification: LCC PR9344 .N68 2016 | DDC 809.3/ 996— dc23
LC record available at http:// lccn.loc.gov/ 2015042362
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
Table of Contents
General Editor’s Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
List of Contributors xiii
Introduction xv
Editorial Note xxix
Part I: The Institution of the Novel in Africa and the Caribbean
1. The Reinvention of the Novel in Africa 3
Simon Gikandi and Maurice Vambe
2. Cultures of Print in the Caribbean 20
Gail Low
3. The Novel and Decolonization in Africa 37
Mpalive- Hangson Msiska
4. The Novel and Decolonization in the Caribbean 55
Supriya M. Nair
Part II: Geographies of the Novel
5. The Novel in African Languages 71
Alena Rettová
6. The Expatriate African Novel in English 87
Simon Lewis
7. The City and the Village: Geographies of Fiction in Africa 104
Jennifer Wenzel
8. Geographies of Migration in the Caribbean Novel 120
J. Dillon Brown
vi | TAblE Of CONTENTS
Part III: The Novel and Cultural Politics
9. Women Novelists in Africa and the Caribbean 137
Elaine Savory
10. Sexuality and Gender in the Anglophone Caribbean Novel 152
Alison Donnell
11. Sexuality and Gender in the African Novel 167
Brenna Munro
12. The Novel and Apartheid 181
Andrew van der Vlies
13. The Novel and Human Rights 198
Joseph R. Slaughter
Part IV: The Novel, Orality, and Popular Culture
14. “Who No Know Go Know”: Popular Fiction in Africa and the Caribbean 217
Jane Bryce
15. Oral and Popular Cultures in the African Novel 236
James Ogude
16. Oral and Popular Cultures in the Caribbean 250
Natasha Barnes
Part V: Styles and Genres
17. The Historical Novel in Africa 269
Eleni Coundouriotis
18. The Historical Novel in the Caribbean 285
Nana Wilson- Tagoe
19. Romance and Realism 301
Yogita Goyal
20. African and Caribbean Modernist Fiction 316
Tim Watson
21. Autobiography and Autobiographical Fiction in the Caribbean 332
Sandra Pouchet Paquet
22. Autobiography in Africa 344
Kgomotso Michael Masemola
23. Caribbean Short Stories in English 359
Victor J. Ramraj
TAblE Of CONTENTS | vii
24. The African Short Story 375
Anthonia C. Kalu
25. African Detective Fiction, Mysteries, and Thrillers 393
Matthew J. Christensen
Part VI: New frontiers
26. African Fiction in a Global Context 411
Peter Kalliney
27. The Caribbean Novel in a Global Context 427
Raphael Dalleo
28. Experimental Fictions 443
Evan Mwangi
29. The Novel in Translation and Transition 461
Shaden M. Tageldin
Part VII: Critical Understanding
30. The Novel Writes Back, Sideways, and Forward: The Question
of Language in African Fiction 483
Chantal Zabus
31. Criticism of the Novel in the Caribbean 499
Simon Gikandi
32. The Novel in Africa: Theories and Debates 515
Gaurav Desai
References 527
Index of African and Caribbean Novelists and Short Story Writers 549
General Index 565

General Editor’s Preface
U
NLIKE poetry and drama, the novel belongs entirely within the sphere of
recorded history. Novels, like historical records, are written texts superseding the
worlds of myth, of epic poetry, and oral storytelling. Typically they are commer-
cial products taking advantage of the technology of printing, the availability of leisure
time among potential readers, and the circulation of books. The growth of the novel as
an art form would have been unthinkable without the habit of silent, private reading, a
habit that we now take for granted, although its origins are much disputed among schol-
ars. While novels are not always read silently and in private, they are felt to belong in the
domestic sphere rather than in the public arenas associated with music, drama, and the
other performance arts. The need for separate histories of the novel form has long been
recognized, since the distinctiveness of fictional prose narrative is quickly lost sight of in
more general accounts of literary history.
The Oxford History of the Novel in English is a multivolume series offering a compre-
hensive, worldwide history of English-l anguage prose fiction, and drawing on the know-
ledge of a large, international team of scholars. Our history spans more than six cen-
turies, firmly rejecting the simplified view that the novel in English began with Daniel
Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe in 1719. Fifteenth- and sixteenth- century prose fiction has, in fact,
been surveyed by many earlier historians, including Ernest A. Baker, whose History of
the English Novel appeared in ten volumes between 1924 and 1939. Unlike Baker’s strictly
chronological account, the Oxford History broadens out as it approaches the present,
recognizing the spread of the English language across the globe from the seventeenth
century onwards. The “English” (or British) novel becomes the novel in English. While
we aim to offer a comprehensive account of the anglophone novel, our coverage cannot
of course be exhaustive; that is a task for the bibliographer rather than the literary his-
torian. All history has a commemorative function, but cultural memory is unavoidably
selective. Selection, in the case of books, is the task of literary criticism, and criticism
enters literary history the moment that we speak of “the novel” rather than, simply, of
the multitude of individual novels. Nevertheless, this Oxford History adopts a broader def-
inition of “the novel” than has been customary in earlier histories. Thus we neither focus
exclusively on the so- called literary novel, nor on the published texts of fiction at the
expense of the processes of production, distribution, and reception. Every volume in this