ENG 3030 [BMWA] CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE – Fall 2014 Prof. Matt Eatough <Matthew.Eatough@baruch.cuny.edu> Class Sessions: MW 9:30am-10:45am, NVC 10-175 Office: NVC 7-292 Office Hours: MW 2:15pm-3:15pm, or by appointment Office Phone: 646-312-4006 Topic: “The African Novel” Required Texts: Chris Abani, GraceLand (Picador; ISBN 0312425287) Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (Anchor: ISBN 0385474547) Aimé Césaire, Notebook of a Return to the Native Land (Wesleyan UP; ISBN 0819564524) Nadine Gordimer, The Conservationist (Penguin; ISBN 0140047166) Wole Soyinka, The Interpreters (Heinemann; ISBN 0435900765) Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, A Grain of Wheat (Penguin; ISBN 0143106767) Required Film: Darrell Roodt (dir.), Yesterday COURSE DESCRIPTION The African novel is often recognized as one of the most vibrant sites of cultural production in the modern world. In part, perhaps, due to the relative newness of novel-writing in Africa, fictional narratives from the continent frequently demonstrate a dizzying blend of oral traditions, folk histories, experimental styles, and political engagement. They also portray the tumultuous history of the African continent during the twentieth century -- a time that included two World Wars, decolonization, the discovery and harvesting of valuable natural resources (gold, diamonds, oil), genocide, and the spread of the AIDS epidemic. Over the course of the semester, we will explore African novels from a variety of diverse literary traditions. Our survey will begin in the 19050s and 1960s with the first generation of post- independence writers (Achebe, Ngũgĩ). From there, we will proceed to investigate the hope and disillusionment experienced by many second-generation African writers (Soyinka, Gordimer), and we will conclude with a study of contemporary child solider novels and AIDS narratives (Abani, Roodt). In examining these works, we will study the historical and cultural contexts of their writing, publication, and reception, including (but not limited to): decolonization, the rise in African literacy rates, the formation of national university systems, and the growth of publishers for African literature. We will also pay particular attention to the difficulties involved in crafting an autonomous African literature free from European or North American influence. What are the politics involved with writing in a European versus an African language? Must African novelists write in African languages in order to authentically represent an “African” experience