Research Catalog

A mask dancing : Nigerian novelists of the eighties

Title: A mask dancing : Nigerian novelists of the eighties / Adewale Maja-Pearce.
Author: Maja-Pearce, Adewale
Publication: London ; New York : Hans Zell Publishers, 1992.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Use in library	PR9387.4 .M3 1992	Off-site

Details

Description

198 pages; 23 cm.

Summary

Writers such as Festus Iyayi, Ben Okri and Kole Omotoso represent what has come to be known as the 'second generation' of Nigerian novelists. Emerging from the shadow of the 68-70 civil war, they were greatly influenced by the ensuing shifts in public and social life, especially the obscene levels of corruption which coincided with the country's second experiment in democracy under President Shagari. Adewale Maja-Pearce argues that the failure of Nigeria is simply and squarely the failure of the Nigerian Intelligentsia. Concentrating mainly, but not exclusively on the novels of the 1980s, he traces this failure in terms of the literature itself, which is the touchstone throughout this deliberately provocative study. 'All the critical twiddle-twaddle about style and form', as D.H. Lawrence put it, is eschewed in favour of the novels themselves and the extent to which they reveal that intellectual failure. A Mask Dancing is the first full-length study of Nigerian novelists that have come to prominence since the late 1970s. It presents a detailed critique of the major figures of the 'second generation', while also touching upon lesser-known writers.

Series Statement

New perspectives on African literature ; no. 4

Uniform Title

New perspectives on African literature ; no. 4.

Subject

Genre/Form

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

I. Through the Past, Darkly -- II. The Fruits of Independence -- III. Into the Abyss -- IV. Darkness Visible -- V. A Woman's Place -- VI. The Hunger for Wholeness.

ISBN

0905450922
9780905450926

LCCN

92026652

OCLC

ocm26402919
26402919
SCSB-14028548

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library