ALT 12 New Writing, New Approaches: African Lite - A review

The re-issue of archival volumes ALT 1 to ALT 14 makes the complete series available and provides the historical perspective of these early contributions to the literature and its criticism.

In his Editorial to African Literature Today 12, first published in 1982, Eldred Jones laments the death of Camara Laye and gives tribute to him as one of the pioneers of African literature. The volume celebrates new writers whose works "have not received much critical attention either because they are relatively new, or because not being what might be described as mainstream they may unintentionally, perhaps, have been damned with faint praise or neglect." There are contributions on the works of Gabriel Okara, Robert Serumaga, Hamidou Kane and John Munonye, and emerging as significant new voices are playwrights Femi Osofisan and Ola Rotimi, and feminist writer Mariama Bâ.