This fascinating and well researched study explores the meaning generated by `Africa' and `Blackness' throughout the century.
Using literary texts, autobiography, ethnography, and historical documents, African Identities discusses how ideas of Africa as an origin, as a cultural whole, or as a complicated political problematic, emerge as signifiers for analysis of modernity, nationhood and racial difference.
Kanneh provides detailed readings of a range of literary texts, including novels by:
* Toni Morrison
* Alice Walker
* Gloria Naylor
* Ngugi Wa Thiong'o
* Chinua Achebe
* and V.S. Naipaul.
For anyone interested in literature, history, anthropology, political writing, feminist or cultural analysis, this book opens up new areas of thought across disciplines.

Reviews

'African Identities is a study richly detailed and admirably sophisticated in its use of cultural theory and its engagement with the large number of writers it treats . . . The work's interdisciplinary nature will make it an invaluable resource in African studies, African-American studies, and cultural studies in general.' - Margo Hendricks, The Modern Language Review

'African Identities is a brilliant and sustained effort to deconstruct and reconstruct the varied conceptualisation of African identity, ...' - Contemporary Review

'Kanneh has given students of African and African-American literatures a useful tool to navigate successfully the difficult terrain of reading not only the literature of Africa and its Diaspora but also 'the meanings of African identities'without a doubt, this is a book worth reading.' - Margo Hendricks, University of California, Santa Cruz

Book Information
ISBN 9780415164450
Author Kadiatu Kanneh
Format Paperback
Page Count 216
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 400g