The African Palimpsest: Indigenization of Language in the West African Europhone Novel
Jan 2007 · Cross/Cultures : readings in the post/colonial literatures in English Book 4 · Rodopi
5.0star
1 reviewreport
Ebook
261
Pages
family_home
Eligible
info
reportRatings and reviews aren’t verified Learn More
About this ebook
Uniting a sense of the political dimensions of language appropriation with a serious, yet accessible linguistic terminology, The African Palimpsest examines the strategies of `indigenization? whereby West African writers have made their literary English or French distinctively `African'. Through the apt metaphor of the palimpsest ? a surface that has been written on, written over, partially erased and written over again ? the book examines such well-known West African writers as Achebe, Armah, Ekwensi, Kourouma, Okara, Saro?Wiwa, Soyinka and Tutuola as well as lesser-known writers from francophone and anglophone Africa. Providing a great variety of case-studies in Nigerian Pidgin, Akan, Igbo, Maninka, Yoruba, Wolof and other African languages, the book also clarifies the vital interface between Europhone African writing and the new outlets for African artistic expression in (auto-)translation, broadcast television, radio and film.Hailed as a classic in the 1990s, The African Palimpsest is here reprinted in a completely revised edition, with a new Introduction, updated data and bibliography, and with due consideration of more recent theoretical approaches.'A very valuable book ? a detailed exploration in its concern with language change as demonstrated in post-colonial African literatures? Bill Ashcroft, University of New South Wales ?Apart from its great documentary value, The African Palimpsest provides many theoretical concepts that will be useful to scholars of African literatures, linguists in general ? as well as comparatists who want to gain fresh insights into the processes by which Vulgar Latin once gave birth to the Romance languages.' Ahmed Sheikh Bangura, University of California, Santa Barbara ?As Zabus? book suggests, it is the area where the various languages of a community meet and cross-over ? that is likely to provide the most productive site for the generation of a new literature that is true to the real linguistic situation that pertains in so much of contemporary urban Africa.' Stewart Brown, University of Birmingham
Ratings and reviews
5.0
1 review
vivek mishra
- Flag inappropriate
April 19, 2014
Good
About the author
CHANTAL ZABUS is Professor of British and Postcolonial Literatures at the University Paris 13. She is the author of Tempests after Shakespeare (2002) and Between Rites and Rights: Excision in Women's Texts and Human Contexts (2007). She has edited Le Secret: Motif et moteur de la littérature (with Jacques Derrida, 1999); Changements au féminin en Afrique noire (2000), and Fearful Symmetries: Essays and Testimonies Around Excision and Circumcision (2008).
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
