Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- EDITORIAL ARTICLE
- ARTICLES
- Gender Politics, Home & Nation in Zulu Sofola's King Emene:
- The Militant Writer in Sembène's Early Fiction:
- Psychological Violence in Bessie Head's
- Constructing the Destructive City:
- History, Progress & Prospects inthe Development of African Literature:
- Dispelling the Myth of the ‘Silent Woman’:
- Interrogating Dichotomies, Reconstructing Emancipation:
- Es'kia Mphahlele's Enduring Truth in Down Second Avenue
- A Tribute to Cyprian O.D. Ekwensi (26 September 1921–4 November 2007): The Writer, the Man & His Era
- REVIEWS
History, Progress & Prospects inthe Development of African Literature:
A Tribute to Dennis Brutus
from ARTICLES
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 April 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- EDITORIAL ARTICLE
- ARTICLES
- Gender Politics, Home & Nation in Zulu Sofola's King Emene:
- The Militant Writer in Sembène's Early Fiction:
- Psychological Violence in Bessie Head's
- Constructing the Destructive City:
- History, Progress & Prospects inthe Development of African Literature:
- Dispelling the Myth of the ‘Silent Woman’:
- Interrogating Dichotomies, Reconstructing Emancipation:
- Es'kia Mphahlele's Enduring Truth in Down Second Avenue
- A Tribute to Cyprian O.D. Ekwensi (26 September 1921–4 November 2007): The Writer, the Man & His Era
- REVIEWS
Summary
It is towards the reunification of Africa tomorrow that Africans must work today if they wish to repair the damage done yesterday. History is a…guide to a better future.
(Bernth Lindfors, ‘Armah's Histories’)In 1975, the year the African Literature Association (ALA) was founded and held its inaugural conference at the Austin campus of the University of Texas, Dennis Brutus was elected its first chair. That first beginning is of interest to me in the present enterprise for a number of reasons. The theme of that conference was simply contemporary black South African literature. Apparently, this is a far cry from what we had in 2011 when this paper was first conceived, the conference theme was: African literature, visual arts, and film in local and transnational spaces. The broad spectrum of the field now covered is in itself reflective of the growth and progress of the association. At that time also, about two hundred and fifty participants were in attendance but now we have multiples of that initial figure attending. Records show too that even as early as that, major exponents and practitioners in the discipline of African literary studies as well as others who were budding scholars at the time, graced that occasion.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Reflections and Retrospectives in African Literature Today , pp. 98 - 107Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2012