June 17, 2008, is the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart by Heinemann. This publication provided the impetus for the foundation of the African Writers Series in 1962 with Chinua Achebe as the editorial adviser. Africa Writes Back: The African Writers Series and the Launch of African Literature captures the energy of literary publishing in a new and undefined field. Portraits of the leading characters and the many consultants and readers providing reports and advice to new and established writers make Africa Writes Back a stand-out book. James Currey’s voice and insights are an added bonus. CONTENTS Publishing and selling the African Writers Series The African Writers Series Portfolio & George Hallett’s covers Main dates for the African Writers Series INTRODUCTION: The establishment of African Literature Publishing Chinua Achebe 1. WRITERS FROM WEST AFRICA Nigeria: The country where so much started Negritude from Senegal to Cameroun Magic & realism from Ghana, The Gambia & Sierra Leone 2. WRITERS FROM EASTERN AFRICA Towards the oral & the popular in Kenya, Uganda & Tanzania Publishing Ngugi 3. WRITERS FROM THE HORN & NORTH-EASTERN AFRICA Emperors in Ethiopia Publishing Nuruddin Farah Arab authors in Egypt & Sudan 4. WRITERS FROM SOUTH AFRICA Resistance in South Africa Publishing Alex la Guma Publishing Dennis Brutus Publishing Bessie Head Publishing Masizi Kunene 5. WRITERS FROM SOUTHERN AFRICAN Guns & Guerrillas in Mozambique &Angola Zambia Shall be Free Death & detention in Malawi The struggle to become Zimbabwe Publishing Dambudzo Marechera CONCLUSION: Is there still a role for the African Writers Series?

The profound effects of colonialism and its legacies on African cultures have led postcolonial scholars of recent African literature to characterize contemporary African novels as, first and foremost, responses to colonial domination by the West. In Africa Writes Back to Self, Evan Maina Mwangi argues instead that the novels are primarily engaged in conversation with each other, particularly over emergent gender issues such as the representation of homosexuality and the disenfranchisement of women by male-dominated governments. He covers the work of canonical novelists Nadine Gordimer, Chinua Achebe, NguÅgiÅ wa Thiong'o, and J. M. Coetzee, as well as popular writers such as Grace Ogot, David Maillu, Promise Okekwe, and Rebeka Njau. Mwangi examines the novels' self-reflexive fictional strategies and their potential to refigure the dynamics of gender and sexuality in Africa and demote the West as the reference point for cultures of the Global South.

17 June 2008 is the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart by Heinemann. This provided the impetus for the foundation of the African Writers Series in 1962 with Chinua Achebe as the Editorial Adviser.'The book is therefore not only the story of a publishing enterprise of great significance; it is also a large part of the story of African literature and its dissemination in the latter half of the twentieth century. The manuscript is full of the drama of that enterprise, the drama of dealing with the mother house, William Heinemann, of dealing with the often intractable political constraints dominating the intellectual space across Africa, and not least of all dealing with the writers themselves - with their ambitions, their temperaments, their financial needs and, at time, their perception of a colonial relationship between themselves and a European publishing house.' - Clive Wake, Emeritus Professor of Modern Languages, University of Kent at Canterbury.

Research Paper (postgraduate) from the year 2013 in the subject Literature - Africa, grade: keine, University of Nigeria (Humanities), course: Humanities and Post Colonial Studies, language: English, abstract: Modern African francophone and Anglophone Literatures date back to the era of the negritude movement. The pioneer African writer was confronted by the ugly past experiences of the inhumanity of the Trans-Atlantic and Trans-Saharan Slave Trade coupled with the degradation of the colonial period. As a result, he decided to pitch his camp with his suffering people by prefering to portray this evil in his writings, creating awareness on ways forward and calling for reforms. His tool was the sociological method. He laid less emphasis on the German werkimmanenz, the French l’art pour l’art, the Russian Formalism and the North American close-reading. The African feminist writer also turned her back to the Euro-American version of feminism and preferred the home-made ideology termed Womanism and her sister acronyms such as Stiwanism and Motherism which maintain that men and women relationship and apportioning of roles in the society should be complementary and not rivalry-prone or confrontational, while condemning obnoxious cultural and anti-womanist practices. Hence African men and women should concert efforts in liberating the African continent which is still suffering from modern versions of Slavery and Colonialism.This research will apply a multi-disciplinary approach and invoke the womanist, psychoanalytical and existentialist theoretical frameworks inter alia to appraise the relevant works of Chinua Achebe, Aminata Sow Fall and Ahmadou Kourouma inter alia. Through their realist portrayals, these African writers have created awareness of the injustices perpetrated by African oppressors, both Euro-Americans and their African collaborators. This research is a call on African writers for more prophetic and liberating efforts in their creatic works and aesthetics. Liberation Literature should by so doing ursher in a GREAT REFUSAL of the status quo and a way forward towards the birth of the beautiful ones in Africa who will fashion out a home-made literary, political, economic and social transformation for the betterment of not only women, but also men as well as youths of Africa.