Download or read book The Suns of Independence written by Ahmadou Kourouma and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2024-01-01 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ahmadou Kourouma's award winning novel, The Suns of Independence is one of the great classics of Francophone African literature, capturing the dreams and struggles of a newly independent nation. Fama is the last of an ancient line of Dumbuya princes who, before the Europeans came, reigned undisputed over the Malinke tribe. Yet even after independence, Fama is forced to beg for his place amongst the bureaucratic elite. Meanwhile, his wife, Salimata, is desperately attempting to save the Dumbuya legacy from extinction. Beyond the gripping political intrigue, Ahmadou Kourouma weaves together an in-depth tapestry of Malinke culture, blending the everyday experience of 1960s postcolonial life with age-old myths and traditions. 'Perhaps the most remarkable African novelist writing in French.' Guardian

Download or read book Genetic Criticism written by Jed Deppman and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2004-04-14 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume introduces English speakers to genetic criticism, arguably the most important critical movement in France today. In recent years, French literary scholars have been exploring the interpretive possibilities of textual history, turning manuscript study into a recognized form of literary criticism. They have clearly demonstrated that manuscripts can be used for purposes other than establishing an accurate text of a work. Although its raw material is a writer's manuscripts, genetic criticism owes more to structuralist and poststructuralist notions of textuality than to philology and textual criticism. As Genetic Criticism demonstrates, the chief concern is not the "final" text but the reconstruction and analysis of the writing process. Geneticists find endless richness in what they call the "avant-texte": a critical gathering of a writer's notes, sketches, drafts, manuscripts, typescripts, proofs, and correspondence. Together, the essays in this volume reveal how genetic criticism cooperates with such forms of literary study as narratology, linguistics, psychoanalysis, sociocriticism, deconstruction, and gender theory. Genetic Criticism contains translations of eleven essays, general theoretical analyses as well as studies of individual authors such as Flaubert, Proust, Joyce, Zola, Stendhal, Chateaubriand, and Montaigne. Some of the essays are foundational statements, while others deal with such recent topics as noncanonical texts and the potential impact of hypertext on genetic study. A general introduction to the book traces genetic criticism's intellectual history, and separate introductions give precise contexts for each essay.

Download or read book Theories of Africans written by Christopher L. Miller and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1990 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Situating literature and anthropology in mutual interrogation, Miller's...book actually performs what so many of us only call for. Nowhere have all the crucial issues been brought together with the sort of critical sophistication it displays."—Henry Louis Gates, Jr. ". . . a superb cross-disciplinary analysis."—Y. Mudimbe

Download or read book Waiting for the Vote of the Wild Animals written by Ahmadou Kourouma and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally from the Côte d'Ivoire, Ahmadou Kourouma spent much of his life working in the insurance industry and living in France and in political exile elsewhere in Africa before returning to Abidjan in 1993. His earlier novels are The Suns of Independence and Monnew. Carrol F. Coates is Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Binghamton University-SUNY and has translated numerous books, including Jacques Stephen Alexis's General Sun, My Brother (Virginia).

Download or read book Blue White Red written by Alain Mabanckou and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2013-02-21 with total page 125 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Mabanckou dazzles with technical dexterity and emotional depth” in his debut novel, winner of the Grand Prix Littéraire de l’Afrique Noire (Publishers Weekly, starred review). This tale of wild adventure reveals the dashed hopes of Africans living between worlds. When Moki returns to his village from France wearing designer clothes and affecting all the manners of a Frenchman, Massala-Massala, who lives the life of a humble peanut farmer after giving up his studies, begins to dream of following in Moki’s footsteps. Together, the two take wing for Paris, where Massala-Massala finds himself a part of an underworld of out-of-work undocumented immigrants. After a botched attempt to sell metro passes purchased with a stolen checkbook, he winds up in jail and is deported. Blue White Red is a novel of postcolonial Africa where young people born into poverty dream of making it big in the cities of their former colonial masters. Alain Mabanckou’s searing commentary on the lives of Africans in France is cut with the parody of African villagers who boast of a son in the country of Digol. Praise for Alain Mabanckou and Blue White Red “Mabanckou counts as one of the most successful voices of young African literature.” —Internationales Literaturfestival Berlin “The African Beckett.” —The Economist “Blue White Red stands at the beginning of the author’s remarkable and multifaceted career as a novelist, essayist and poet . . . this debut novel shows much of his style and substance in remarkable ways . . . Dundy’s translation is excellent.” —Africa Book Club “Mabanckou’s provocative novel probes the many facets of the ‘migration adventure.’” —Booklist

Download or read book Allah is Not Obliged written by Ahmadou Kourouma and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ALLAH IS NOT OBLIGED TO BE FAIR ABOUT ALL THE THINGS HE DOES HERE ON EARTH.These are the words of the boy soldier Birahima in the final masterpiece by one of Africa’s most celebrated writers, Ahmadou Kourouma. When ten-year-old Birahima's mother dies, he leaves his native village in the Ivory Coast, accompanied by the sorcerer and cook Yacouba, to search for his aunt Mahan. Crossing the border into Liberia, they are seized by rebels and forced into military service. Birahima is given a Kalashnikov, minimal rations of food, a small supply of dope and a tiny wage. Fighting in a chaotic civil war alongside many other boys, Birahima sees death, torture, dismemberment and madness but somehow manages to retain his own sanity. Raw and unforgettable, despairing yet filled with laughter, Allah Is Not Obliged reveals the ways in which children's innocence and youth are compromised by war.

Download or read book Monnew written by Ahmadou Kourouma and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The tragic story of Djigui Keita, a fictional king of Soba, who is overwhelmed by the French colonial forces.

Download or read book Indigenization of Language in the African Francophone Novel written by Peter W. Vakunta and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2011 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Indigenization of Language in the African Francophone Novel: A New Literary Canon discusses the question of indigenization in the African Francophone novel. Analyzing the prose narratives of Nazi Boni, Ahmadou Kourouma, and Patrice Nganang, this book contends that African literature written in European languages is primarily a creative translation process. Recourse to European languages as a medium of expressing African imagination, worldview, and cultures in fictional writing poses problems of intelligibility. Developed to express and reflect Western worldviews and sensibilities, European languages are employed by African writers to convey messages that seem to be at variance with European imagination. These writers find themselves writing in languages they wish to subvert through the technique of literary indigenization. The significance of this study resides in its raising awareness to the hurdles that literary creativity in a polyglossic context may present to readers and translators. This book provides answers to intriguing questions centering on the problematic of translation in contemporary African literature. It is a contribution to current research aimed at unraveling the conundrum surrounding the language question in African Europhone fiction, particularly the cultural functions of translation in literature. Potential translation problems have to be addressed in order to make African literature written in European languages intelligible to global readership. With the advent of globalization, transcultural communication has become an activity of enormous importance to the international community. It is a subject of great interest to translators, linguists, language instructors, and literary theorists.

Download or read book The Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born written by Ayi Kwei Armah and published by Heinemann. This book was released on 1988 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A beginners' guide to the fundamentals of the Dru meditation technique, a method for soothing the mind and relaxing the emotions. The programme includes six short guided meditations designed to instill a sense of profound stillness, quieten and calm a stressed mind and reconnect with the important aspects of life. Each nine-minute meditations is based on one of the elements: Earth, Water, Light, Air and Sky.

Download or read book Francophone Literatures written by M. H. Offord and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unique in its analysis both of literary and linguistic techniques, this text draws together extracts from novels written in French by writers from Francophone areas outside Europe, including North Africa, Black Africa, the Caribbean and North America.

Download or read book Francophone African Fiction written by Jonathan Ngate and published by Africa World Press. This book was released on 1988 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Waiting For The Wild Beasts To Vote written by Ahmadou Kourouma and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-01-25 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ahmadou Kourouma's remarkable novel is narrated by Bingo, a West African sora - storyteller and king's fool. Over the course of five nights he tells the life story of Koyaga, President and Dictator of the Gulf Coast. Orphaned at the age of seven, Koyaga grows up to be a terrible hunter; he fights mythical beasts, and is a shape-shifter, capable of changing himself into beasts and birds. He fights in the French colonial armies, in Vietnam and Algeria, but on his return he mounts a coup and becomes ruler and dictator of the Gulf Coast. For thirty years he runs a corrupt but 'clean' state, surviving repeated assassination attempts and gaining support and investment from abroad. But when the 'First World' decides it no longer want to support dictatorships and call for democracy, he needs another ruse to maintain himself in power... Part magic, part history, part savage satire, Waiting for the Wild Beasts to Vote is nothing less than a history of post-colonial Africa itself.

Download or read book The Black Cloth written by Bernard Binlin Dadié and published by Univ of Massachusetts Press. This book was released on 1987 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a collection of sixteen African folktales by poet, novelist, critic, and statesman, Bernard Binlin Dadie that represents the oral tradition of his native Ivory Coast.

Download or read book African Freedom written by Phyllis Taoua and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-26 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive synthesis of the ideal of freedom in African culture from a pan-African perspective after independence.

Download or read book African Literature in French written by Dorothy S. Blair and published by CUP Archive. This book was released on 1976-11-18 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 1976 book provides both a historical survey and a critical analysis of the literature in French from West and Equatorial Africa. Professor Blair begins by discussing the social, educational and political influences which led to the formation of the Negritude movement and to a flowering of French-African creative writing. This historical approach is then complemented by a study of the different literary genres. She traces the evolution of the first manifestations of literary activity in French by African writers, the written folk-tale, fable and short story, from the oral tradition of the indigenous culture, and the eventual appearance of the novel with a legendary or historical theme. The origins of French-African drama are considered for the first time, and the work of the minor poets analysed. Finally, Professor Blair attempts a definition of the French-African novel, and studies examples from three major periods from the 1930s onwards.

Download or read book The Sequential Dynamics of Narrative written by Ken Ireland and published by Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Building on critical theories of narrative, this study analyses temporal and continuity relations in fiction

Download or read book Defying the Global Language written by Cheryl Toman and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book continues a conversation initiated by renowned intellectuals and writers worldwide and crossculturally who have claimed ownership of what were previously considered colonial or vehicular languages. The essays use as their reference significant works of written and oral literature, theater, and media. The theories presented in this book are some of the most important within the field of ethnic studies today and include perspectives from linguistic and literary theory as well as from feminist and disability theories. This book looks at notions of race, gender, class, and ethnicity and how these are expressed-or not-by language, and it demonstrates the latest trends in ethnic studies without dismissing the original theories that shaped the field. As the first study to concentrate on how speakers of indigenous and/or local languages significantly appropriate a dominant language as their own as a means of decolonizing communication and reinforcing cross-border commonalities on all levels of political and economic power, this is an important book for those in the fields of comparative literature, ethnic studies, linguistics (especially sociolinguistics), women's and gender studies, African and African American studies, Asian studies, French and francophone studies, Caribbean studies, English, disability studies, cultural studies, Middle Eastern studies, and postcolonial studies.