Writing the prison in African literature / Rachel Knighton.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Knighton, Rachel, 1989- author.

Series:

Race and resistance across borders in the long twentieth century ; 5.

Race and resistance across borders in the long 20th century ; volume 5

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Mapanje, Jack.

Saʻdāwī, Nawāl.

Soyinka, Wole.

First, Ruth, 1925-1982.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo, 1938-2025.

African literature (English)--20th century--History and criticism.

African literature (English).

Prisoners' writings, African (English)--History and criticism.

Prisoners' writings, African (English).

Political prisoners--Africa--Intellectual life.

Political prisoners.

Biography as a literary form.

Prisoners in literature.

Prisons in literature.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo, 1938-2025--Criticism and interpretation.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo.

First, Ruth, 1925-1982--Criticism and interpretation.

First, Ruth.

Soyinka, Wole--Criticism and interpretation.

Saʻdāwī, Nawāl--Criticism and interpretation.

Mapanje, Jack--Criticism and interpretation.

Criticism and interpretation.

Intellectual life.

Africa.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

x, 198 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Peter Lang Ltd, 2019.

Summary:

This book examines a selection of prison memoirs by five renowned African writers: Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Ruth First, Wole Soyinka, Nawal El Saadawi and Jack Mapanje. Detained across the continent from the 1960s onward due to their writing and political engagement, each writer's memoir forms a crucial yet often overlooked part of their wider literary work. The author analyses the varied and unique narrative strategies used to portray the prison, formulating a theory of prison memoir as genre that reads the texts alongside postcolonial, trauma, life-writing and prison theory. The book also illustrates the importance of these memoirs in the telling of their historical moment, from apartheid South Africa to post-independence Kenya, Nigeria, Egypt and Malawi--Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction

The individual and the collective in Ngugi Wa Thiong'o's Detained

Prison memoir and perspectival variation in Ruth First's 117 days

Narrating psychological breakdown and political opposition in Wole Soyinka's The man died

Liberation and the body in Nawal el Saadawi's Memoirs from the women's prison

Creating a prison poetics in Jack Mapanje's And crocodiles are hungry at night

Conclusion.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781788746472

1788746473

OCLC:

1081365853

Publisher Number:

99983742493