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As we were going to press with this volume, we got the news of the death in Ghana of Ama Ata Aidoo (23 March 1942 – 31 May 2023), a pioneer consummate feminist voice of all time! We will carry a full tribute of her life and work in the next issue, ALT 42.

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ALT 41

Stable URL:https://openaccess.boydellandbrewercms.com/?id=-268172

Open Access license

Interrogates and explores African literature in African languages today, and the continuing interfaces between works in indigenous languages and those written in European languages or languages of colonizers.

Sixty years after the Conference of African Writers of English Expression at Makerere University, the dominance in the global canon of African literatures written in European languages over those in indigenous languages continues to be an issue. This volume of ALT re-examines this central question of African literatures to ask, 'What is the state of African literatures in African languages today?' Contributors discuss the translation of Gurnah's novel Paradise to Swahili, and Osemwegie's Ọrọ Epic to English, and Wolof wrestlers' panegyrics. They analyse Edo eco-critical poetry, and the poetics of Igbo mask poetry, and morality in early prose fiction in indigenous Nigerian languages. Other essays contribute a semiotic analysis of Duruaku's A Matter of Identity, and the decolonization of trauma in Uwem Akpan's Say You're One of Them. Overall, the volume paints a complex image of African cultural production in indigenous languages, especially in the ways Africa's oral performance traditions remain resilient in the face of a seemingly undiminished presence of non-African language literary traditions.

PublisherJames Currey

Print publication date Dec, 2023

Print ISBN 9781847013460

EISBN 9781805431084

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ALT 41

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