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Article: The Ordeal of the African Writer.(Book Review)
- Article from:
- African Arts
- Article date:
- June 22, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 The Regents of the University of California. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Ordeal of the African Writer by Charles R. Larson Zed Books Ltd., distributed by Palgrave, New York, 2001. viii + 168pp. $55.00 cloth, $19.95 paper.
The now-familiar claim made by Amadou Hampate Ba, that "in Africa, when an old person dies, it is the same thing as a library burning," rejoins in many ways the central concerns of this book. Indeed, the very "ordeal" of the African writer was announced by the transition to what Wole Soyinka described as "talking with paper" (p. 29) as a result of the unfortunate legacy of colonial and imperial violence.
Larson explores a range of subjects relating to the world of publishing African writers: the ...