This handbook provides a critical overview of literature dealing with groups of people or regions that suffer marginalization within Africa. The contributors examine a multiplicity of minority discourses expressed in African literature, including those who are culturally, socially, politically, religiously, economically, and sexually marginalized in literary and artistic creations. Chapters and sections of the book are structured to identify major areas of minority articulation of their condition and strategies deployed against the repression, persecution, oppression, suppression, domination, and tyranny of the majority or dominant group. Bringing together diverse perspectives to give a holistic representation of the African reality, this handbook is an important read for scholars and students of comparative and postcolonial literature and African studies.

This handbook provides a critical overview of literature dealing with groups of people or regions that suffer marginalization within Africa. The contributors examine a multiplicity of minority discourses expressed in African literature, including those who are culturally, socially, politically, religiously, economically, and sexually marginalized in literary and artistic creations. Chapters and sections of the book are structured to identify major areas of minority articulation of their condition and strategies deployed against the repression, persecution, oppression, suppression, domination, and tyranny of the majority or dominant group. Bringing together diverse perspectives to give a holistic representation of the African reality, this handbook is an important read for scholars and students of comparative and postcolonial literature and African studies.

From Hollywood to Nollywood: this issue of African Literature Today examines the relationship between film and video and the literatures of Africa. A recent literary phenomenon in contemporary Africa is the developing relationship between film and African literature. ALT 28 focuses on the interface between film and literature in contemporary African writing and imagination. Contributors have examined the issue from a variety of perspectives: critiques of adaptations of African creative works into film, analyses of filmic structures in African dramatic literature, African writers as film makers, and the impact of the video film industry on literature and the reading culture in Africa. Ernest N. Emenyonu is Professor of the Department of Africana Studies, University of Michigan-Flint Nigeria: HEBN

A focus on some of the pioneers of African literary creation. This special issue of African Literature Today is devoted to some of the pioneer voices of African fiction in the twentieth century: Bessie Head, Cyprian Ekwensi, Dennis Brutus, Ezekiel Mphahlele, Flora Nwapa, Ousmane Sembene and Zulu Sofola. The contributors explore the development of these influential writers and their impact on the continent and beyond, through a study of their writing, sources and influences. Some focus on case studies of specific works which are particularly important in the creative development of the author. The contributions of these writers to the growth and development of modern African Literature are highlighted. These are also writers whose works, in the words of Chimalum Nwankwo in his Introduction 'have defined for their time a deep engagement and commitment with the pulse of the people...' Ernest Emenyonu is Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Michigan-Flint, USA; the editorial board is composed of scholars from US, UK and African universities Chimalum Nwankwo [Guest Editor] Former Chair of the Department of English, North Carolina A & T State University, Greensboro, USA, and Professor of English and World Literatures, is currently on sabbatical at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria. Nigeria: HEBN

Bate Besong was Cameroon's most vocal and controversial poet, playwright and scholar, who died in March 2007. The poems in this collection are a tribute to the man and his work, and provide a snapshot of the mood that prevailed after his death. Bate Besong ushered in a new kind of nationalist "fighting" literature in Cameroon, unapologetic in its defense of Cameroon's Anglophone minority and scathing in its denunciation of postcolonial African dictators and their foreign collaborators. These poems defy Bate Besong's death by affirming that his impact as a writer lives on. 34 poems are included from 30 poets. "Moving and tellingly generous, these tributes attest to the value of Bate Besong as humanist, artist, and patriot; the 'Inextinguishable Flame' of his inspiration; the triumph of his life over the pain of his departure. Here is a resonant celebration not only of the brief but boisterously bright fire of one of our bravest writers, but also of the unbreakable chord of our common humanity. The refrains in these elegies are anthems of hope. The ink in their lines will for ever stay aglow." Niyi Osundare, Nigerian writer & former teacher of Bate Besong "These poems put into perspective the essence of that Anglophone Cameroon literary icon, the fearless "Obasinjom Warrior" with the bemused smile, who once upon a time, was called Bate Besong." Ba'bila Mutia, Professor of Literature, ENS, University of Yaounde 1, Cameroon. Author of Coils of Mortal Flesh