Drawing on the discipline of stylistics, this book introduces a series of methodological tools and applies them to works by well-known Nigerian writers, including Abani, Adichie and Okri. In doing so, it demonstrates how attention to form fosters understanding of content in their work, as well as in African and postcolonial literatures more widely.

Table of contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1 Towards an ‘African Stylistics’? Historiographical and Methodological Considerations

2 Of Palm Oil and Wafers: Characterization in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus

3 ‘The Other Half of the Sun’: Ideology in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun

4 Art is a Journey: Metaphor in Ben Okri’s The Landscapes Within and Dangerous Love

5 ‘Bi-textual’ Poetics: Investigating Form in Chris Abani’s Becoming Abigail

6 Children at War: Language and Representation in Uzodinma Iweala’s Beasts of No Nation and Chris Abani’s Song for Night

Conclusion

Notes

References

Index