Instr:                 Sheila Roberts
Office:              CRT 597,     229-4534
e-mail:              svrob@uwm.edu
Office hours:     by appointment.

Course Information:           MW 11:05 to 12:20pm.                    Curtin 477

Reading
Chinua Achebe (Nigerian), Things Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe, No Longer At Ease
Bessie Head (Botswanan), Maru
Camara Laye (French Guinean), The Radiance of the King
Sembene Ousmane (Senegalese), God's Bits of Wood
Ben Okri (Nigerian), The Famished Road
Marita van der Vyver (South African), Entertaining Angels
Marlene van Niekerk (South African), Triomf

A course package of photocopied short stories, poems, maps, and photographs, available at Clark's Graphics on Oakland
and Locust.

Course Description

Our study will focus on African literature written in English, with one or two novels translated from the French (as
available).  Among the many historical and cultural details these interesting works bring to us is a freshness of language, a tough
(unusual at times) sense of humor, and wide, complex human experiences.

Part of our discussion of the reading will touch on what was known as "the scramble for Africa," a situation in the late
nineteenth century where the major European powers were hastily--and in competition with one another--colonizing African
territories. Many of the works--whether novels, short stories, or poems--will address the hardships of those so colonized as
well as the discomforts the colonizers could not have foreseen or  avoided.

 Time permitting, we shall also view a selection of films, such as "Black and White in Color," "A Dry White Season," and
"Mister Johnson."