Starting with a broad attempt to define the general concerns in African literature, and the cultural esthetics which form the basis of this writing, this thesis tries to place the emerging East African literature in English into the stream of African literature, and of literature at large. It focusses particularly on the works of Okot p'Bitek and James Ngugi and treats broadly the themes emerging from the East African environment and the artistic challenges which these themes pose to the writer. It concludes that meaning and strength in this emerging literature will stem from the writers' awareness and sensibility to their environment and a willingness to make an honest and artistic appraisal of this situation. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

This thesis proposes to study comprehensively the contribution of Buchi Emecheta to African literature and to the debate over feminism and African and black women. Chapters one and two are a background to the investigation of Emecheta's fiction. They examine the work of selected African female and male novelists in order to assess the representation of he African woman in the novel and her role and place in a changing society. The writings of women are considered in relation to women's priorities and the orientation of the African novel itself. The notion of protest as a rhetorical device is considered in Chapters three and four. They chart Emecheta's condemnation of patriarchal ethics in four of her novels. The awakening and growth in consciousness of her heroines is studied in detail in Chapter four which also considers the novelist's interest in national questions. Chapters five and six discuss the attitudes of African/black women towards feminism as practised in the West and how it is reflected in the positions of Emecheta and some other African female writers; how this is perceived in the writing of black women in Britain and of representative African-American novelists and critics. Lesbianism and radical separatism are discussed, as is the womanist alternative. While Chapter five is fundamentally theoretical, Chapter six traces the evolution of Emecheta's own views by way of her first two novels of the early seventies and the latest one published in 1989. Language and style are under consideration in Chapters seven, eight and nine. Chapter seven is concerned with placing Emecheta within the debate about literatures in African languages. Chapter eight deals with stylistic developments in Emecheta's fiction in terms of narrative strategy and the source from which she constructs the figures in her prose. The presentation of speech is scrutinized in chapter nine as part of realism, which entails an examination of the function of proverbs and Pidgin English in the novels.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Thesis (doctoral)--Université de Paris 13, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 468-495) and index.

Thesis (doctoral)--Université de Paris 13, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 468-495) and index.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Notre Dame, 2005. / Thesis directed by Catherine Perry for the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures. "July 2005." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-81).

The thesis examines the main conventions governing traditional Nigerian entertainment and the development of these conventions under influences from Western drama. Wole Soyinka's development of these conventions is considered along with his influence on present day play-wrights. The main section of the thesis is concerned with the further evolution of Nigerian theatrical conventions by four playwrights; Zulu Soiola, Wale Ogunyemi, Femi Osofisan and Bode Sowande. The discussion is presented in three parts. In the first chapter, there is a recapitulation and evaluation of the conventions which emerged from traditional Nigerian entertainment by the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The second section consists of two chapters: the first is concerned with the period when there was strong western influence on modern Nigerian drama through the University College at Ibadan, the chapter on Wole Soyinka that follows is concerned with the further evolution of theatrical convention in his drama, the third and major section of the thesis examines the present day development of Nigerian theatrical convention through an analysis of the techniques of the four playwrights; Zulu Sofola, Wale Ogunyemi, Femi Osofisan and Bode Sowande. The material in the thesis includes accounts of interviews with Soyinka, and the four playwrights. It is hoped that this material which has not previously been collected will prove valuable to students of modern Nigerian drama. The aim of the thesis is to provide knowledge, analyse conventions and techniques and stimulate interest in Nigerian drama, particularly, that developed after Soyinka1s successes in the sixties.

The main goal of this dissertation consists in the elaboration and application of a number of theoretical approaches to all the works, fictional and extra-fictional, of the Cape Verdean novelist Germano Almeida. This study attempts to integrate the several theoretical approaches so as to reach a new analytical vision of Almeida's oeuvre in the context of the world in which it was produced. I start by using conventional literary theories—post-colonialism, post-modernism, and (post)-feminism, as well as psychoanalytical theories. I conclude by subjecting these several theoretical constructs to a number of principles derived from the natural sciences. The purpose of doing so is to determine the possibilities and limitations of traditional literary theory. Moreover, it is the purpose of this dissertation to expand the theoretical context in order to account for the many innovations—structural and thematic—that inform the works of this Lusophone African writer. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)