| Synopsis: |
The coverage displayed here is predominantly on sub-Saharan literary production, and with a - perhaps systemic - focus on important aspects of political history and socio-political structures (including marxian analyses of the `public sphere') and such crucial arenas as religious discipline, the tension between tradition and modernity, ecological awareness, family, and gender.Most of the discussions are traditionally content-oriented, but there are at least two essays (on Soyinka's Ake and on Amma Darko's The Housemaid) that attempt to come to grips narratologically with the medium of prose fiction itself. A quartet of essays with a more general purview - including a refreshing demontage of exclusive obeisance to (Western) ecriture - is followed by a section on poets, some canonical, others emergent: Ogaga Ifowodo, Jack Mapanje, Olu Oguibe, Tanure Ojaide, Okot p'Bitek, Wole Soyinka, Lade Wosornu. Essays on fiction cover general topics (women's fiction; political writing in Nigeria; the nightmare of Biafra), and landmark texts both anglophone (Chinua Achebe, Amma Darko, Festus Iyayi, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Wole Soyinka), francophone (Mariama Ba, Mongo Beti, and Ousmane Sembene), and - a novum for Matatu - hispanophone (Donato Ndongo). The theatre section has essays on Ama Ata Aidoo, Zakes Mda, Anne Tanyi-Tang, Soyinka, and Ahmed Yerima, as well as Ngugi and Mugo.We are especially pleased to be able to offer accomplished original poetry, short stories, and a complete drama text. Four comprehensive essay-reviews (on literary criticism, cinema, graphic art, and traditional African society) round out this issue. |