A New Generation of African Writers: Migration, Material Culture and Language

There is a growing interest in books by writers of African origin. These authors have often grown up or passed their early adult years out of Africa. The Orange Prize for Fiction was awarded in London 2007 to Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun, and the Caine Prize for African Writing has introduced new writers such as Leila Aboulela, Biyi Bandele and Chimamanda Adichie herself to agents and publishers. This examination of the extraordinary work which has recently appeared is therefore very timely. Migration is a central theme of much African fiction written in English. Here, Brenda Cooper tracks the journeys undertaken by a new generation of African writers, their protagonists and the solid objects that populate their fiction, to depict the material realities of their multiple worlds and languages. She explores the uses to which the English language is put in order to understand these worlds and demonstrates how these writers have contested the dominance of colonising metaphors. The writers' challenge is to find an English that can effectively express their many lives, languages and identities.