Postcolonial literature and the impact of literacy : reading and writing in African and Caribbean fiction

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Title:

Author:

Kortenaar, Neil ten.

ISBN:

9781107008670

Personal Author:

Kortenaar, Neil ten.

Publication Information:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Physical Description:

viii, 224 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.

General Note:

Formerly CIP.

Contents:

The coming of literacy: Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe -- The contents of the tin trunk: Sarà by Wole Soyinka -- Mr Biswas finds a home in the world on paper: V. S. Naipaul -- Literacy in the world not ruled by paper: Myal by Erna Brodber -- Southern Africa's houses of hunger.

Subject Term:

Commonwealth fiction (English) -- History and criticism.

Literacy in literature.

African fiction (English) -- History and criticism.

Caribbean fiction (English) -- History and criticism.

Postcolonialism in literature.

Copies:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Item Barcode	Shelf Number	Copy	Status
Searching... 1:IIEMSA	1:GEN-BOOK	33168025543048	823.90996 K85P 2011	1	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

Examining images of literacy in African and West Indian novels, Neil ten Kortenaar looks at how postcolonial authors have thought about the act of writing itself. Writing arrived in many parts of Africa as part of colonization in the twentieth century, and with it a whole world of book-learning and paper-pushing; of school and bureaucracy; newspapers, textbooks and letters; candles, hurricane lamps and electricity; pens, paper, typewriters and printed type; and orthography developed for formerly oral languages. Writing only penetrated many layers of West Indian society in the same era. The range of writers is wide, and includes Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka and V. S. Naipaul. The chapters rely on close reading of canonical novels, but discuss general themes and trends in African and Caribbean literature. Ten Kortenaar's sensitive and penetrating treatment of these themes makes this an important contribution to the growing field of postcolonial literary studies.