This course focuses on short fiction produced by African writers from the second half of the 20th century to the present. It examines short stories written by pioneering African writers, including Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Ama Ata Aidoo, Flora Nwapa as well as more recent writers such as Chimamanda N. Adichie and Chris Abani. A variety of themes and characters illustrated in these texts demonstrate the transcendental and universal dimension of short fiction, as the individual anecdote is representative of a wider societal phenomenon. The stories cover a broad range of themes including cultural clash, women struggle, revolution, post-independence disillusionment, cultural nationalism and Afrocentricity, struggle for identity and self-determination, tradition vs. modernity, exile, war, violence and trauma. Added to a variety of selected texts excerpted from collections and anthologies, a concise short-story theory will expand our understanding of the texts analyzed and discussed.
