The Swahili Novel

Challenging the Idea of 'Minor Literature'
Erscheinungsjahr 2013
ISBN: 978-1-84701-079-7
Verlag: Boydell & Brewer

Buch, Englisch, 201 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 467 g

WINNER: 2015 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Award

An overview of the Swahili novel, its place in a globalized world and a reflection on the status and dynamism of Kafka's concept of 'minor literature'.

For more than fifty years a dynamic modern literature has been developing in the Kiswahili language. The political weight that Kiswahili carries as the emerging national and pan-national language of many East African countries places this literature, much of it in the form of novels, at the centre of heated literary debates on the social function of literature in the context of rapid global social change.
Garnier provides new insights into the Swahili novel form with all its vibrancy and capacity for experimentation. Its obsession with social issues relates to larger, all-pervasive political debates running through East Africa: in its press, its streets, its public and private places. The novels both record and provoke these debates. Based on the study of more than 175 Swahili novels by almost 100 authors, Garnier brings to light a body of work much neglected by African literary critics, but which looks outwards to the wider world.

Xavier Garnier teaches African Literature at the Université Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle and is former director of the Centre d'Etudes des Nouveaux Espaces Littéraires, Université Paris 13.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Garnier, Xavier

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literarische Gattungen
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturen sonstiger Sprachräume Afrikanische Literaturen
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literatursoziologie, Gender Studies
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturkritik: Hermeneutik und Interpretation

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction
Narrating Values: Describing a World
Shaaban Rober: The Optimism of Writing
The Crisis of the Bildungsroman
Euphrase Kezilahabi: An Initiatory Realism
The Political Novel
Mohamed Suleiman Mohamed: Narrating a Dual Reality
Criminals & the Corrupted
Investigations & Enigmas
Said Ahmed Mohamed: The Dark Side of Images
Conclusion

Über Autor(innen)

Xavier Garnier teaches African Literature at the Université Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle and is former director of the Centre d'Etudes des Nouveaux Espaces Littéraires, Université Paris 13.