The Blind Men and the Elephant: And Other Essays in Biographical Criticism - Softcover

Lindfors, Bernth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0865437297 ISBN 13: 9780865437296

Publisher: Africa World Pr, 1999

Synopsis

This book is a collection of essays, which examine the lives, and works of a number of outstanding contemporary writers of African origin. The biographical subjects include Chinua Achebe, Dennis Brutus, Cyprian Ekwensi, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, 1986 Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, Amos Tutuola, Janheinz Jahn and Sartjee Baartman.

The essays approach the African literary subjects from a variety of biographical perspectives. The first two deal with biographical criticism itself, offering examples of how it can be abused as a method of literary evaluation. The next three are concerned with demonstrating why the themes and techniques employed by Dennis Brutus, Wole Soyinka and Ngugi wa Thiong'o have changed significantly over time. The remaining essays are primarily biographical, setting down a reliable factual record of important moments in the careers of two Nigerian writers, a German scholar and a South African performer. Each essay has its own strategy, but they all work toward a common goal: illumination of a reciprocity between literature and life.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

In an intellectual climate dominated by formalistic theoretical concerns, biographical criticism may seem an unfashionable mode of academic discourse, but it is sorely needed when writers and readers hail from different countries. A text may be so completely conditioned by its indigenous environment that it cannot be adequately grasped or appreciated without some knowledge of its creator and the circumstances that prompted its creation. Biographical criticism, by studying the human face behind the text, may thus assist us in the larger task of reading our fellow man.

Included among those individuals whose lives and works are examined here are Chinua Achebe, Dennis Brutus, Cyprian Ekwensi, Ngugu wa Thiong'o, Wole Soyinka, Amos Tutuola, Janheinz Jahn and Sartjee Baartman.

About the Author:

Bernth Lindfors is a professor of English and African Literatures at the University of Texas at Austin. Former editor of the Journal Research in African Literatures, he has written and edited more than thirty books on African literature, including Popular Literatures in Africa (AWP 1991), (with James Gibbs) research on Wole Soyinka (AWP 1993), Long Drums and Canons: Teaching and Researching African Literatures (AWP 1995), Loaded Vehicles: Studies in African Literary Media (AWP 1996) and African Textualities: Texts, Pre-Texts and Contexts of African literature (AWP 1997).

About this edition

• Publisher: Africa World Pr
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0865437297
• ISBN 13: 9780865437296
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 200