This book appraises André Brink’s reputation as an internationally acclaimed commentator on the enormities of the apartheid state and one of South Africa’s foremost novelists. Highlighting Brink’s enduring meditation on the writer’s responsibility to a society in a state of moral and political siege and his exemplary position in the interrogation of the subtle discursive strategies of the apartheid establishment, it refers extensively to Brink’s oeuvre, but focuses mainly on his first seven novels in English: The Ambassadors, Looking on Darkness, An Instant in the Wind, Rumours of Rain, A Dry White Season, A Chain of Voices and The Wall of the Plague. Aimed primarily at students of South Africa, it draws on postcolonial theory to examine the ideological implications of the Western aesthetic and intellectual background that nurtured Brink’s imagination, his fixation with the tragic vision, Christian theology, and existentialism, in the context of his professed political affiliations.

Beyond the critical examination of Isidore Diala’s award-winning poetry and drama, the essays in this collection offer fresh insights on the complex methodological and theoretical patterns underlying the readings of African literary landscapes. This is the first book to devote considerable attention to the study of Diala’s creative works The Pyre (drama) and The Lure of Ash (poetry). The majority of the contributors here are selected from among the finest of Diala’s former teachers, colleagues and students who know him very closely. The collection addresses fertile areas of African literary expression, such as the relationship between literature and national history, African ritual aesthetics; affirmation, denial and ambivalence as products of social constructions; and exile, migration and home-coming. Contributions also explore poetry and poetic truths; semiotics; anticolonial revolutions and postcolonial implosions; oil politics; discontent and militancy; and feminism and gender politics. The book stands out among its peers, and offers great insights to scholars, researchers and teachers working in the fields of African literature, cultures and aesthetics.

A broad range of cultural works produced in traditional and modern African communities shows a fundamental preoccupation with the concepts of communal solidarity and hospitality in societies driven by humanistic ideals. African Cultural Production and the Rhetoric of Humanism is an inaugural attempt to focus exclusively and extensively on the question of humanism in African art and culture. This collection brings together scholars from different disciplines who deftly examine the deployment of various forms of artistic production such as oral and written literatures, paintings, and cartoons to articulate an Afrocentric humanist discourse. The contributors argue that the artists, in their representation of civil wars, massive corruption, poverty, abuse of human rights, and other dehumanizing features of post-independence Africa, call for a return to the traditional African vision of humanism that is relentlessly being eroded by the realities of postcolonial nationhood.

Recognized as one of the greatest novelists of all-time, Fyodor Dostoevsky continues to inspire and instigate questions about religion, philosophy, and literature. However, there has been a neglect looking at his political thought: its philosophical and religious foundations, its role in nineteenth-century Europe, and its relevance for us today. Dostoevsky’s Political Thought explores Dostoevsky’s political thought in his fictional and nonfictional works with contributions from scholars of political science, philosophy, history, and Russian Studies. From a variety of perspectives, these scholars contribute to a greater understanding of Dostoevsky not only as a political thinker but also as a writer, philosopher, and religious thinker.

Para/Inquiry represents the next generation of postmodern studies. Focusing on cultural studies religion, and literature, Victor E. Taylor provides us with a fresh look at the history and main themes of postmodernism, both in style and content. Central to the book is the status of the sacred in postmodern times. Taylor explores the sacred images in art, culture and literature. We see that the concept of the sacred is uniquely singular and resistant to an easy assimilation into artistic, cultural or narrative forms. Anyone wishing to gain a new and exciting understanding of postmodernism, will read this book with great pleasure.