Print Culture and the First Yoruba Novel

I.B. Thomas's 'Life Story of Me, Segilola' and Other Texts
Erscheinungsjahr 2012
ISBN: 978-90-04-22915-0
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 12, 422 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 236 mm, Gewicht: 658 g

Reihe: African Sources for African History

First appearing as a series of letters to a local newspaper, “The Life Story of Me, Segilola” caused a sensation in Lagos in the late 1920s. The lifelike autobiography of a repentant courtesan, it regaled the reader with risqué escapades, pious moralising and vivid evocations of urban popular culture. The narrative and the commentary that sprang up around it in the Yoruba press offer a unique view of life in colonial Lagos. Today it is recognised as I.B.Thomas's work and hailed as the first Yoruba novel in a major African literary tradition. This volume presents the edited Yoruba text with translation, selected newspaper correspondence, and an introductory essay showing how the text emerged from the Yoruba print culture of the time.

Zielgruppe

Everyone interested in comparative literature, African social history, and African languages. It will be of particular interest to academics and undergraduate and postgraduate students and university and public libraries, but will also attract interested general readers.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Barber, Karin

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturen sonstiger Sprachräume Afrikanische Literaturen
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Einzelne Sprachen & Sprachfamilien

Über Autor(innen)

Barber, Karin
Karin Barber, Ph.D. (1979, University of Ife, Nigeria), is Professor of African Cultural Anthropology at the University of Birmingham. She has published extensively on Yoruba culture. Her most recent book is The Anthropology of Texts, Persons and Publics (Cambridge University Press, 2007).