Produktdetaljer
Om bidragsyterne
Toyin Falola is Professor of History, University Distinguished Teaching Professor, and the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin, USA. His publications include Fela Anikulapo-Kuti: Afrobeat, Rebellion, and Philosophy (with Adeshina Afolayan; Bloomsbury, 2022), Wole Soyinka: Literature, Activism, and African Transformation (with Bola Dauda; Bloomsbury, 2021), Understanding Modern Nigeria: Ethnicity, Democracy, and Development (2021), and Nigerian Political Modernity and Postcolonial Predicaments (2016).
Falola has served as the General Secretary of the Historical Society of Nigeria, the President of the African Studies Association, Vice-President of UNESCO Slave Route Project, and the Kluge Chair of the Countries of the South, Library of Congress. He is a member of the Scholars’ Council, Kluge Center, the Library of Congress. He has received over 30 lifetime career awards and 14 honorary doctorates.
An imaginative, narratological reading of Chinua Achebe's novels, stories, poetry, and essays through a literary and historical framework.
Toyin Falola analyzes fictional and historical cartographies of Africa in Achebe’s literary works to offer a critical representation of Africa's present and future. In particular, he focuses on the historical valuation of a full range of the writer's works – novels including Things Fall Apart, but also short stories, poems, and essays – as important materials that have contributed to the political events in Nigeria and, by extension, Africa.
The raw creativity found in Achebe’s stories and his ability to tell the Nigerian story – precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial – have endeared him to many, including readers and those critical of him and his works. Chinua Achebe: Narrating Africa in Fictions and History analyzes all of the writer’s works, dwelling on the Nigerian political context upon which many, if not all, of his narratives lie. As a result, it examines methodologies of narration and ideologies that allow his works to resonate with the imagination of Africa.
List of Illustrations
Preface
1. The Scholarship on Chinua Achebe
2. The Life and Times of Chinua Achebe
3. Precolonial Life and Colonialism in Things Fall Apart
4. Narrative of an Ailing Nation: No Longer at Ease
5. Cultural Conflicts and Religious Tensions: Arrow of God
6. A Foreteller: A Man of the People
7. Military Regimes and Authoritarianism: Anthills of the Savannah
8. The Sad Tale of a County at War: There Was a Country
9. Love, Innocence, and Nationhood: Chinua Achebe’s Short Stories and Poems
10. The Critic: Achebe’s Essays
11. Achebe and the Narration of the Nation
12. The Legacies: Narrating Africa, Probing the Present, Imagining the Future
Bibliography
Index
In recent times, the vibrant nature of Black creativity is pulsating through global cultures. Whether it is the roaring success of the utopian fictionalization of Africa in Black Panther or Beyonce’s acclaimed Black is King, Black/African/Diaspora literature making its way into the reading lists of people across the globe, African cinema/Nollywood’s global travels, or the increasingly-growing popularity of Afrobeats on the world stage, this is an exciting time for Black culture. With all of these interests in Black literature, music, film, art, etc., comes the necessity of an academic series that offers a forum for new works on the theoretical perspectives of these burgeoning expressions of Black literature and culture.
Bloomsbury’s Black Literary and Cultural Expressions series provides a much-needed space for exploring dimensions of Black creativity as its local expressions interface with the global circulation of culture. From contemporary and historical perspectives, and through a multidisciplinary lens, works in this series critically analyze the provenance, genres, aesthetics, intersections, and modes of circulation of works of Black cultural expression and production.
To submit a proposal, please contact Amy.Martin@bloomsbury.com or the series editors: Toyin Falola (toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu) and Abimbola A. Adelakun (adelakun@austin.utexas.edu). For more information, see www.bloomsbury.com/discover/bloomsbury-academic/authors/submitting-a-book-proposal.
Produktdetaljer
Om bidragsyterne
Toyin Falola is Professor of History, University Distinguished Teaching Professor, and the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin, USA. His publications include Fela Anikulapo-Kuti: Afrobeat, Rebellion, and Philosophy (with Adeshina Afolayan; Bloomsbury, 2022), Wole Soyinka: Literature, Activism, and African Transformation (with Bola Dauda; Bloomsbury, 2021), Understanding Modern Nigeria: Ethnicity, Democracy, and Development (2021), and Nigerian Political Modernity and Postcolonial Predicaments (2016).
Falola has served as the General Secretary of the Historical Society of Nigeria, the President of the African Studies Association, Vice-President of UNESCO Slave Route Project, and the Kluge Chair of the Countries of the South, Library of Congress. He is a member of the Scholars’ Council, Kluge Center, the Library of Congress. He has received over 30 lifetime career awards and 14 honorary doctorates.