English - Free topic C: Writing Africa: Four Perspectives on Nigerian and Kenyan Literature

What does it mean to write Africa? In this class we ponder how writers write colonised and postcolonised Africa through two case studies, zooming in on Nigeria and Kenya. By pairing early and recent literary representations of the two nations we ask how place is evoked in this literature. What has changed in the writing of Africa from the early classic texts and those published now? Who do the writers write for? How do they write Africa – and more narrowly – Kenya and Nigeria? In order to answer such sweeping questions, we close read four novels from four different perspectives: nation, language, cosmopolitanism and feminism.