Book contents
- The Cambridge History of World Literature
- The Cambridge History of World Literature
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Genealogies
- Part II Thinking the World
- Part III Transregional Worlding
- Part IV Cartographic Shifts
- Part V World Literature and Translation
- Part VI Poetics, Genre, Intermediality
- 31 Poetry, (Un)Translatability, and World Literature
- 32 The Reinvention of the Novel in Africa
- 33 The Return of Realism in the World Novel
- 34 The Graphic Novel as an Intermedial Form
- 35 World Children’s Literature
- Part VII Scales, Polysystems, Canons
- Part VIII Modes of Reading and Circulation
- Part IX The Worldly and the Planetary
- Index
- References
32 - The Reinvention of the Novel in Africa
from Part VI - Poetics, Genre, Intermediality
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 August 2021
Edited by
Book contents
- The Cambridge History of World Literature
- The Cambridge History of World Literature
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Genealogies
- Part II Thinking the World
- Part III Transregional Worlding
- Part IV Cartographic Shifts
- Part V World Literature and Translation
- Part VI Poetics, Genre, Intermediality
- 31 Poetry, (Un)Translatability, and World Literature
- 32 The Reinvention of the Novel in Africa
- 33 The Return of Realism in the World Novel
- 34 The Graphic Novel as an Intermedial Form
- 35 World Children’s Literature
- Part VII Scales, Polysystems, Canons
- Part VIII Modes of Reading and Circulation
- Part IX The Worldly and the Planetary
- Index
- References
Summary
The African novel exhibits formal innovations that could not have been predicted by considering its difference from the European novel or its continuity with oral verbal cultural traditions. Those innovations reveal something important about the nature of the literary imagination in Africa and the nature of the genre of the novel. This article considers three such innovations: the parental point of view, the elevation of narrative focus to take in the head of state, and the fictive state.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of World Literature , pp. 621 - 635Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021
References
Ashcroft, Bill, Griffiths, Gareth, and Tiffin, Helen. 1990. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures. Routledge.Google Scholar
Auerbach, Erich. 1973. Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. Trans. Trask, Willard R.. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Chinweizu, Onwuchekwa Jemie, and Madubuike, Ihechukwu. 1983. Washington DC: Howard University Press.Google Scholar
Comaroff, Jean, and John, L. Comaroff. 2016. Theory from the South: Or, How Euro-America is Evolving toward Africa. Routledge.Google Scholar
Jacobson, Dan. 1985. “The Vanishing Act.” In Time and Time Again. André Deutsch, 137–45.Google Scholar
Julien, Eileen. 1992. African Novels and the Question of Orality. Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Mwangi, Evan. 2009. Africa Writes Back to Self: Metafiction, Gender, Sexuality. SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Newell, Stephanie. 2006. West African Literatures: Ways of Reading. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar