The rise to global prominence of African literature, and particularly of the African novel, is one of the most vital and dynamic developments in contemporary world culture. In his book, Keith Booker provides an introduction to eight African novels written in English. The novels Booker examines include Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, Buchi Emecheta's The Joys of Motherhood, Ayi Kwei Armah's The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, Ama Ata Aidoo's Our Sister Killjoy, Nadine Gordimer's Burger's Daughter, Alex La Guma's In the Fog of the Seasons' End, Ngugi wa Thiong'o's Devil on the Cross, and Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions. Booker uses these works to illustrate the scope and variety of the African novel and the general aesthetic, cultural, and political concerns that have motivated African authors. The selected novels also can be read and studied together thus making The African Novel in English and ideal textbook for university courses.


M. Keith Booker is Professor of English at the University of Arkansas. A prolific author, he has published books on James Joyce, Mikhail Bakhtin, and dystopian fiction. He has a book on depictions of India in the modern British novel entitled Colonial Power, Colonial Texts by the University of Michigan Press. Other projects include a book on reading Joyce after the Cold War as well as articles in the journals Critique, Research in African Literatures, and Pynchon Notes. His course offerings include classes on literary theory, modern British literature, and graduate and undergraduate courses on world literature and postcolonial fiction.