Research Catalog

Writing the prison in African literature

Title
Writing the prison in African literature / Rachel Knighton.
Author
Knighton, Rachel, 1989-
Publication
  • Oxford ; New York : Peter Lang Ltd, 2019.
  • ©2019

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StatusFormatAccessCall NumberItem Location
TextUse in library Sc E 19-940Schomburg Center - Research & Reference

Details

Description
x, 198 pages; 23 cm.
Summary
This book examines a selection of prison memoirs by five renowned African writers: Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Ruth First, Wole Soyinka, Nawal El Saadawi and Jack Mapanje. Detained across the continent from the 1960s onward due to their writing and political engagement, each writer's memoir forms a crucial yet often overlooked part of their wider literary work. The author analyses the varied and unique narrative strategies used to portray the prison, formulating a theory of prison memoir as genre that reads the texts alongside postcolonial, trauma, life-writing and prison theory. The book also illustrates the importance of these memoirs in the telling of their historical moment, from apartheid South Africa to post-independence Kenya, Nigeria, Egypt and Malawi--Provided by publisher.
Series Statement
Race and resistance across borders in the long 20th century ; volume 5
Uniform Title
Race and resistance across borders in the long twentieth century ; 5.
Subject
  • Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo, 1938- > Criticism and interpretation
  • First, Ruth, 1925-1982 > Criticism and interpretation
  • Soyinka, Wole > Criticism and interpretation
  • Saʻdāwī, Nawāl > Criticism and interpretation
  • Mapanje, Jack > Criticism and interpretation
  • First, Ruth, 1925-1982
  • Mapanje, Jack
  • Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo, 1938-
  • Saʻdāwī, Nawāl
  • Soyinka, Wole
  • 1900-1999
  • African literature (English) > 20th century > History and criticism
  • Prisoners' writings, African (English) > History and criticism
  • Political prisoners > Africa > Intellectual life
  • Biography as a literary form
  • Prisoners in literature
  • Prisons in literature
  • African literature (English)
  • Prisoners' writings, African (English)
  • Africa
Genre/Form
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents
Introduction -- The individual and the collective in Ngugi Wa Thiong'o's Detained -- Prison memoir and perspectival variation in Ruth First's 117 days -- Narrating psychological breakdown and political opposition in Wole Soyinka's The man died -- Liberation and the body in Nawal el Saadawi's Memoirs from the women's prison -- Creating a prison poetics in Jack Mapanje's And crocodiles are hungry at night -- Conclusion.
Call Number
Sc E 19-940
ISBN
  • 9781788746472
  • 1788746473
  • 9781788746489 (ePDF) (canceled/invalid)
  • 9781788746496 (ePub) (canceled/invalid)
LCCN
2018049938
OCLC
1081365853
Author
Knighton, Rachel, 1989- author.
Title
Writing the prison in African literature / Rachel Knighton.
Publisher
Oxford ; New York : Peter Lang Ltd, 2019.
Copyright Date
©2019
Type of Content
text
Type of Medium
unmediated
Type of Carrier
volume
Series
Race and resistance across borders in the long 20th century ; volume 5
Race and resistance across borders in the long twentieth century ; 5.
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Chronological Term
1900-1999
Research Call Number
Sc E 19-940
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