Routledge Studies in African Literature
Postcolonial Disillusionment and Migration in African Literature
1st Edition
Edited
By Oyewumi Olatoye Agunbiade, Sone Mirabeau Enongene
June 16, 2026
This book investigates the many ways in which African literature has engaged with themes of migration and postcolonial disillusionment. The book argues that disillusionment amongst African migrants facing discrimination abroad has become a microcosm for postcolonial disillusionment at home. Drawing...
Rereading Chenjerai Hove: Rupture and Suture in Zimbabwean Literature
1st Edition
By Muchativugwa Liberty Hove
April 08, 2026
This book assesses the life and works of leading Zimbabwean poet and novelist, Chenjerai Hove. Proposing a reading of Hove’s work through the dual concepts of rupture and suture, this book investigates Hove’s position as a writer in exile. Described affectionately as ‘Change’ by his contemporaries,...
Magical Realism in Africa: Literary and Dramatic Explorations
1st Edition
Edited
By Sarali Gintsburg, Kenneth Usongo
January 30, 2026
Magical realism has deep roots across many African languages and regions. This book explores African magical realism from a transregional and inclusive approach, drawing on contributions from different literary genres across the continent. The chapters in this book constitute a sustained and ...
The Swahili Novels of Tanzanian Women: Agency, Tradition, and Change
1st Edition
By Izabela Romańczuk
January 30, 2026
This book provides a rich and full analysis of female Swahili novelists from a feminist perspective, highlighting their important contributions to the living Swahili literary and intellectual tradition. Compared to the diverse and centuries-old oral literature, or religious-philosophical poetry ...
Time and Nature in the Poetry of Niyi Osundare: Poetics of Animism, Anthropocene, and Capitalocene
1st Edition
By Chukwunwike Anolue
November 28, 2025
This book provides an ecocritical analysis of the poetry of the famous Nigerian poet Niyi Osundare. It interrogates the intricate interface between time and nature in 11 of Osundare’s defining poetry collections. This is a book of postcolonial ecocriticism from an African perspective. It brings ...
Contemporary Somali Diasporic Literature: Ambivalent Belonging and Phobic Cosmopolitanism
1st Edition
By Denish Odanga
November 10, 2025
This book considers how the literature of the Somali diaspora deploys themes of ambivalent belonging in cosmopolitan spaces. The book starts by building a picture of cosmopolitanism thinking from the European Enlightenment through to key postcolonial thinkers like Anthony Appiah, Achille ...
Insidious Trauma in Eastern African Literatures and Cultures
1st Edition
Edited
By Norman Saadi Nikro, Denish Odanga, James Odhiambo Ogone, Oduor Obura, Obala Musumba
October 27, 2025
This book investigates the thematic and conceptual dimensions of insidious trauma in contemporary eastern African literatures and cultural productions. The book extends our understanding of trauma beyond people’s immediate and conventional experiences of disastrous events and incidents, instead ...
Sindiwe Magona and the Power of Paradox: Challenging the Polarization of South African Discourse
1st Edition
By Renée Schatteman
July 30, 2025
This book examines the work of Sindiwe Magona, one of South Africa’s most prolific and groundbreaking writers, widely recognized for highlighting the everyday experiences of women and the domestic side of apartheid. A pioneer among black African women writers, she is equally respected as ...
African Shakespeare: Subversions, Appropriations, Negotiations
1st Edition
Edited
By Ifeoluwa Aboluwade, Serena Talento, Pepetual Mforbe Chiangong, Oliver Nyambi
February 17, 2025
African Shakespeare: Subversions, Appropriations, Negotiations uncovers the multidimensional inventions, synergies, and experimentations that have emerged from performative, political, literary, and conceptual encounters with Shakespeare and his oeuvre in African contexts. Divided into three ...
African Women Narrating Identity: Local and Global Journeys of the Self
1st Edition
By Rose A. Sackeyfio
December 18, 2024
This book examines the complexities of women’s lives in Africa and the transnational spaces of Europe and North America through the literary works of key African women writers. Using a postcolonial analytical framework, the book highlights the commonalities of African women’s identities and ...
The Experimental Turn in the Moroccan Novel, 1976-1989
1st Edition
By Anouar El Younssi
December 03, 2024
The Experimental Turn in the Moroccan Novel, 1976-1989 examines the trajectory of the Moroccan experimental novel and makes a link between its emergence in the early-mid 1970s and the Arab defeat in the six-day war with Israel in 1967. Drawing on works by Muḥammad Barrādah, ʿAbdullāh ...
Autobiography, Memory and Nationhood in Anglophone Africa
1st Edition
By David Ekanem Udoinwang, James Tar Tsaaior
August 26, 2024
This book provides an important critical analysis of the autobiographies of nine major leaders of national liberation movements in Africa. By examining their self-narratives, we can better understand how decolonisation unfolded and how activist-politicians sought to immortalise their roles for ...