Emerging African Voices: A Study of Contemporary African Literatu ...

Introduction

Emerging African Voices is a concerted attempt to offer an assessment of the literary endeavors of select members of the latest generation of African writers. There exists an abundance of deft scholarship and critical analysis, even in the most recent publications by African and Western theorists, of the works of recognized African authors; however, it is sometimes difficult to access a variety of criticism on the works of some more recent writers, those born just before, during, or just after the independence of many African nations. It seems that either almost all of the recent monographs continue to focus almost entirely on the well-established writers or they focus on one newer writer exclusively. Take, for instance, the recent publication of Tejumola Olaniyan and Ato Quayson's African Literature: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory (2007). While this is an excellent compendium of literary scholarship, it contains only a smattering of critical commentary on the works of newer African voices. Likewise, Derek Wright's New Directions in African Fiction (1997) focuses on very few newer African authors. Wright indicates that his study focuses on the “innovation and invention” of