How has the state impacted culture and cultural production in Africa? How has culture challenged and transformed the state and our understandings of its nature, functions, and legitimacy? Compelled by complex realities on the ground as well as interdisciplinary scholarly debates on the state-culture dynamic, senior scholars and emerging voices examine the intersections of the state, culture, and politics in postcolonial Africa in this lively and wide-ranging volume. The coverage here is continental and topics include literature, politics, philosophy, music, religion, theatre, film, television, sports, child trafficking, journalism, city planning, and architecture. Together, the essays provide an energetic and nuanced portrait of the cultural forms of politics and the political forms of culture in contemporary Africa.

How has the state impacted culture and cultural production in Africa? How has culture challenged and transformed the state and our understandings of its nature, functions, and legitimacy? Compelled by complex realities on the ground as well as interdisciplinary scholarly debates on the state-culture dynamic, senior scholars and emerging voices examine the intersections of the state, culture, and politics in postcolonial Africa in this lively and wide-ranging volume. The coverage here is continental and topics include literature, politics, philosophy, music, religion, theatre, film, television, sports, child trafficking, journalism, city planning, and architecture. Together, the essays provide an energetic and nuanced portrait of the cultural forms of politics and the political forms of culture in contemporary Africa.

A new collection of poetry from one of Africa's great contemporary poets. A multi-award winner, Niyi Osundare presents the poems in three parts. "Children of the Week" presents poems for each day of the week - positing what are the real names of the children of the week? What are their peculiar characteristics and inclinations? What do they do to the passing of time? What dust is raised by their fleeting feet? And how do they manage their caravan of moments? In this unusual drama, every day is a character, vibrant and fabulously humanised. Myth and music enhance the poetms; each day tells is own story in a lyrical ahnd powerfully evocative voice. The second part is one long poem "Some days"; and the third part covers Special Days.

The home of international award-winning Nigerian poet was devastated by Hurricane Katrinia in New Orleans, destroying his library, manuscripts, and other valuable possessions. This is his first collection since that time. Sensuous, daring and characteristically lyrical; these poems are a testimony to the affirmation of life and the indestructibility of the creative spirit. We see the deeply personal side of the bard widely regarded as a political poet.

In the first play, The Man who Walked Away, a principled and sensitive young man who has served a multi-national company for decades, is 'retrenched', with severe consequences for his self-respect and his family. In the second play, The Wedding Car, a corrupt businessman and politician exercises his ambition for his daughter to marry ostentatiously, though things do not go according to plan.

A lyrical and panoramic body of poems from the prize-winning poet, informed by a revolutionary vision about the earth, our home.

Waiting Laughters is Osundare's second volume of poetry, published to critical acclaim. In 1991, it won The Noma Award for Publishing in Africa, the most prestigious book prize for new works published within the African continent. The collection is conceived as a poetic response to the gloom and despair gripping contemporary African society: the poems emphasise the possibility of laughter and its diverse manifestations. The style of the poetry is reflective of oral and Yoruba literary traditions.

Osundare advocates the poetry of performance- performance instructions and musical effects are part of the poems - as at once creative and deeply political. The present collection testifies, wholly convincingly, to the poet's belief that language - the Word - defines personal and social history, expression and identity. 'In the Beginning was not the Word/In the Word was the Beginning', launches the volume and is its constant refrain. Language may sometimes be impotent or illusory - the middle section, 'Silence', reflects upon political censorship, the struggle of illiteracy, and the agonies and ambivalence of writing in the colonial language. But words which commit to 'truth and dream', and preferably, 'throw bridges/Across gulfs of indifferent ears, are the poet's only tool of communication for change.

Niyi Osundare is one of Nigeria's most prominent writers, and a winner of the Commonwealth Poetry Prize and the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa 1991. Moonsongs won Honourable Mention in the 1989 Noma Award. The main body of the poems is given harmony by being centred on the image of the moon. Thirty-six poems explore original themes and imagery, enhanced by the rhythms of the language.

One of Africa's most highly acclaimed poets, whose garlands include the 1986 Commonwealth Poetry Prize and the 1991 Noma Award for Publishing in Africa, this volume of poetry is part declarative, part confessional, part reflective, predominantly visionary. The volume was written around the poet's fortieth birthday. It is a vibrant celebration of life, its lights and shadows, its mountains of pain, its valleys of pleasure; and a passionate engagement with Africa's problems and manifold possibilities. The style is varied, experimental, and lyrically evocative.

These poems from one of Africa's most highly acclaimed poets and the winner of the 1991 Noma Award for Publishing in Africa, are an ironic celebration of collective aspirations, failures, guilts and hopes. They call for change in a society wracked with problems. The poet sets out to produce a collection that captures the significant happenings of the time in a tune that is simple, accessible, topical, relevant, and artistically pleasing and, as he puts it: 'to remind kings about the corpses which line their way to the throne, to show the rich the slums which fester behind their castles, to praise virtue, denounce vice, to mirror the triumphs and travails of the downtrodden, to celebrate the green glory of the rainy season and the brown accent of the dry, to distil poetry from the dust and clay of the vast, prodigious land - songs plucked from the lips of my land in its manifold laughters and sorrows.'

Winner of the Commonwealth Poetry Prize for 1986, Niyi Osundare is one of Nigeria's most prominent younger writers. This first collection of his poetry is the expression of a critical awareness in its exploration of the social situation in contemporary Nigeria. In an introduction, Biodun Jeyifo remarks that his distinctive voice is attributable to the fact that his verses confront both poetry of revolution and a revolution of poetry, in terms of forms and techniques. Thirty-five poems are included.

A recently published play from the prolific Nigerian poet, dramatist and literary critic, which testifies to the author's commitment to socially relevant art and artistic activism for which he is justifiably renowned. The play tells the story of Yankeland, an imaginary African country, where the country's natural and donated wealth is in the hands of a few corrupt rulers in cahoots with the American military. The powerful prey on the exploited masses, whilst upholding a facade of god-fearing morality. The play is written in the style of street theatre and producs a biting and dramatic satire on political authoritarianism and ignorance, which the author holds responsible for the backwardness of many African countries.The play does however show that such oppression is being challenged; and that the natural inclination of human beings is towards resistance and solidarity, for which Osundare's characters demonstrate great capacity.The courage, unambiguous criticism and optimism in the future are reflected in the performance history of the play itself, which was first staged at the Arts Theatre at the University of Ibadan in 1997, during the time of one of Nigeria's most repressive military dictatorships.