Africa Writes Back to Self

Evan Maina Mwangi is Assistant Professor of English at Northwestern University and the coauthor (with Simon Gikandi) of The Columbia Guide to East African Literature in English Since 1945.

"Africa Writes Back to Self is a solid contribution … its emphasis on texts written in local African languages makes it particularly useful. Its combination of reading established African writers alongside more locally known authors provides an uncommon insight into East African literature, making it good reading for scholars wishing to broaden their horizons on various aspects of contemporary African literature." — H-Net Reviews (H-Africa)"Evan Maina Mwangi, drawing from a rich selection of contemporary African novels, and attentive to their local histories, and sensitive to the nuances of linguistic and cultural translation, offers a bracing, nuanced, and yet surprisingly obvious thesis … Africa Writes Back to Self is deeply pedagogical … it reflects not only on what should be taught, but also on how it should be taught." — Research in African Literatures"…Mwangi effectively reinforces the familiar argument that early nationalist texts' metafictional critique of European discourse about Africa masked profound gender chauvinism … [a] fine and wide-ranging book." — African Studies Quarterly"…Mwangi is astonishingly well read in English and in several East African languages, and this volume covers both 'literary' and popular writing and novels known regionally as well as internationally." — CHOICE

• PrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Writing Back to Self1. Genealogies and Functions of Self-Reflexive Fiction2. (En)countering Sex in the Nationalist Canon3. Potentials and Pitfalls of National Language Literatures4. Orature and Deconstructed Folklore5. Politicized Palimpsests and Gendered Intertexts6. Painted Metaphors: The Gendered Deployment of Visual Arts7. Refiguring (Out) Queer Sexualities8. Gendered Theoretical RecalibrationsConclusion NotesWorks CitedIndex