Bearing Witness: Readers, Writers, and the Novel in Nigeria
()
About this ebook
Greed, frustrated love, traffic jams, infertility, politics, polygamy. These--together with depictions of traditional village life and the impact of colonialism made familiar to Western readers through Chinua Achebe's writing--are the stuff of Nigerian fiction. Bearing Witness examines this varied content and the determined people who, against all odds, write, publish, sell, and read novels in Africa's most populous nation.
Drawing on interviews with Nigeria's writers, publishers, booksellers, and readers, surveys, and a careful reading of close to 500 Nigerian novels--from lightweight romances to literary masterpieces--Wendy Griswold explores how global cultural flows and local conflicts meet in the production and reception of fiction. She argues that Nigerian readers and writers form a reading class that unabashedly believes in progress, rationality, and the slow-but-inevitable rise of a reading culture. But they do so within a society that does not support their assumptions and does not trust literature, making them modernists in a country that is simultaneously premodern and postmodern.
Without privacy, reliable electricity, political freedom, or even social toleration of bookworms, these Nigerians write and read political satires, formula romances, war stories, complex gender fiction, blood-and-sex crime capers, nostalgic portraits of village life, and profound explorations of how decent people get by amid urban chaos. Bearing Witness is an inventive and moving work of cultural sociology that may be the most comprehensive sociological analysis of a literary system ever written.
Read more from Wendy Griswold
American Guides: The Federal Writers’ Project and the Casting of American Culture Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Regionalism and the Reading Class Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to Bearing Witness
Titles in the series (40)
Offside: Soccer and American Exceptionalism Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Elusive Togetherness: Church Groups Trying to Bridge America's Divisions Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPrivilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul's School Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The University and the Global Knowledge Society Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsResurrecting the Jew: Nationalism, Philosemitism, and Poland’s Jewish Revival Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow Civic Action Works: Fighting for Housing in Los Angeles Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDisrupting Science: Social Movements, American Scientists, and the Politics of the Military, 1945-1975 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsReds, Whites, and Blues: Social Movements, Folk Music, and Race in the United States Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnder the Cover: The Creation, Production, and Reception of a Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Becoming Right: How Campuses Shape Young Conservatives Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Contested Tastes: Foie Gras and the Politics of Food Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBearing Witness: Readers, Writers, and the Novel in Nigeria Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThere Goes the Gayborhood? Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Moral Background: An Inquiry into the History of Business Ethics Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGifted Tongues: High School Debate and Adolescent Culture Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Minds of Marginalized Black Men: Making Sense of Mobility, Opportunity, and Future Life Chances Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCommunity: Pursuing the Dream, Living the Reality Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMaking Volunteers: Civic Life after Welfare's End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Battle for Yellowstone: Morality and the Sacred Roots of Environmental Conflict Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInteraction Ritual Chains Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Religion and Family in a Changing Society Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHollywood Highbrow: From Entertainment to Art Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsContentious Curricula: Afrocentrism and Creationism in American Public Schools Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Partisan Publics: Communication and Contention across Brazilian Youth Activist Networks Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Fraught Embrace: The Romance and Reality of AIDS Altruism in Africa Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOn Justification: Economies of Worth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Taylorized Beauty of the Mechanical: Scientific Management and the Rise of Modernist Architecture Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsReinventing Justice: The American Drug Court Movement Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKingdom of Children: Culture and Controversy in the Homeschooling Movement Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Related ebooks
The Pan-African Nation: Oil and the Spectacle of Culture in Nigeria Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSilence Would be Treason: The Last Writings of Ken Saro-Wiwa Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Extinction of Menai: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Hausa of Nigeria Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Afropolitan Horizons: Essays toward a Literary Anthropology of Nigeria Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMaking Modern Girls: A History of Girlhood, Labor, and Social Development in Colonial Lagos Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMarsh Boy and other Poems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Cabals and the Naked Dance: ( Short Stories ) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Fourth Masquerade Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Issues in African Literature Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Status: 3Rd Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSecond Class Citizen Summary & Analysis Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInikpi Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRe-writing Pasts, Imagining Futures: Critical Explorations of Contemporary African Fiction and Theater Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLie to Me, Dan Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDappled Things Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Maybe Tomorrow Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNairobi Grit Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Study Guide for Ama Ata Aidoo's "No Sweetness Here" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEyo Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Columbia Guide to East African Literature in English Since 1945 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMrs. Shaw: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Literature Help: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Once Upon a Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Interpreters: Ritual, Violence, and Social Regeneration in the Writing of Wole Soyinka Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlacker Berries Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAfrica in Contemporary Perspective: A Textbook for Undergraduate Students Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAn African Sunset: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe African Novel of Ideas: Philosophy and Individualism in the Age of Global Writing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Literary Criticism For You
The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by Michael A. Singer | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Art of Seduction: by Robert Greene | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Verity: by Colleen Hoover | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 48 Laws of Power: by Robert Greene | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Behold a Pale Horse: by William Cooper | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/512 Rules For Life: by Jordan Peterson | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Man's Search for Meaning: by Viktor E. Frankl | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Power of Habit: by Charles Duhigg | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Virtues Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Letters to a Young Poet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Circe: by Madeline Miller | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Court of Thorns and Roses: A Novel by Sarah J. Maas | Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Secret History: by Donna Tartt | Conversation Starters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsQuiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain | Conversation Starters Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Just Kids: A National Book Award Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killers of the Flower Moon: by David Grann | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5SUMMARY Of The Plant Paradox: The Hidden Dangers in Healthy Foods That Cause Disease and Weight Gain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.by Brené Brown | Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Bearing Witness
0 ratings0 reviews