Pre-Colonial Africa in Colonial African Narratives

Donald R. Wehrs is Associate Professor of English at Auburn University, USA, where he teaches postcolonial studies, comparative literature, and eighteenth-century British literature. He is the author of African Feminist Fiction and Indigenous Values (2001), and his essays on postcolonial, British, and European literature have appeared in Modern Language Notes, New Literary History, Ariel, Modern Philology, College Literature, Studies in English Literature, and English Literary History.

'Donald Wehrs is one of the rare critics who is able to combine post-structuralism with cognitive neuroscience. His interweaving of these traditions is often arresting and insightful...an erudite, sophisticated, challenging book for students of postcolonial literature to learn from and argue with.' Patrick Hogan, University of Connecticut, USA ’... an impressive contribution to the field of (postcolonial) African literature. It is extremely well researched and the author's deep unerstanding of indigenous African traditions permits him to gain valuable insights, allowing him to challenge current understandings of Africa before the colonial era. The work succeeds in shining a spotlight on this neglected section of African literary research and provides a critical overview of the differing perspectives available to African authors. ... the strengths of this book are numerous and it is an invaluable addition to the reading list of anyone with an interest in modern/postcolonial African literature and/or African history.’ Modern Language Review

• Chapter 1 Embodied Ethical Life and the Threat of Cognitive Imperialism in African Contexts; Chapter 2 Hayford, Balewa, and the Representation of African Culture and Society; Chapter 3 Articulations of Empire and Hatred of the Other Man in Hazoumé’s Doguicimi; Chapter 4 History, Fable, and Syncretism in Fagunwa’s Forest of a Thousand Daemons; Chapter 5 The Ordeal of Cognitive Imperialism in Tutuola’s Early Fiction; Chapter 6 Pre-Colonial History and Anticolonial Politics in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart;