Childhood In African Literature

Download or read book Childhood in Contemporary Diasporic African Literature written by Christopher E. W. Ouma and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-02-27 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the representation of figures, memories and images of childhood in selected contemporary diasporic African fiction by Adichie, Abani, Wainaina and Oyeyemi. The book argues that childhood is a key framework for thinking about contemporary African and African Diasporic identities. It argues that through the privileging of childhood memory, alternative conceptions of time emerge in this literature, and which allow African writers to re-imagine what family, ethnicity, nation means within the new spaces of diaspora that a majority of them occupy. The book therefore looks at the connections between childhood, space, time and memory, childhood gender and sexuality, childhoods in contexts of war, as well as migrant childhoods. These dimensions of childhood particularly relate to the return of the memory of Biafra, the figures of child soldiers, memories of growing up in Cold War Africa, queer boyhoods/sonhood as well as experiences of migration within Africa, North America and Europe.

Download or read book The Dark Child written by Laye Camara and published by Penguin Classics. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Dark Child is a vivid and graceful memoir of Camara Laye's youth in the village of Kouroussa, French Guinea, a place steeped in mystery. Laye marvels over his mother's supernatural powers, his father's distinction as the village goldsmith, and his own passage into manhood, which is marked by animistic beliefs and bloody rituals. Eventually, he must choose between this unique place and the academic success that lures him to distant cities. More than autobiography of one boy, this is the universal story of sacred traditions struggling against the encroachment of a modern world. A passionate and deeply affecting record, The Dark Child is a classic of African literature.

Download or read book Beyond the Boundaries of Childhood written by Crystal Lynn Webster and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2021-04-27 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For all that is known about the depth and breadth of African American history, we still understand surprisingly little about the lives of African American children, particularly those affected by northern emancipation. But hidden in institutional records, school primers and penmanship books, biographical sketches, and unpublished documents is a rich archive that reveals the social and affective worlds of northern Black children. Drawing evidence from the urban centers of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, Crystal Webster's innovative research yields a powerful new history of African American childhood before the Civil War. Webster argues that young African Americans were frequently left outside the nineteenth century's emerging constructions of both race and childhood. They were marginalized in the development of schooling, ignored in debates over child labor, and presumed to lack the inherent innocence ascribed to white children. But Webster shows that Black children nevertheless carved out physical and social space for play, for learning, and for their own aspirations. Reading her sources against the grain, Webster reveals a complex reality for antebellum Black children. Lacking societal status, they nevertheless found meaningful agency as historical actors, making the most of the limited freedoms and possibilities they enjoyed.

Download or read book New Perspectives on African Childhood written by De-Valera NYM Botchway and published by Vernon Press. This book was released on 2019-09-05 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it mean to be a child in Africa? In the detached Western media, narratives of penury, wickedness and death have dominated portrayals of African childhood. The hegemonic lens of the West has failed to take into account the intricacies of not only what it means to be an African child in local and culturally specific contexts, but also African childhood in general. Challenging colonial discourses, this edited volume guides the reader through different comprehensions and perspectives of childhood in Africa. Using a blend of theory, empiricism and history, the contributors to this volume offer studies from a range of fields including African literature, Afro-centric psychology and sociology. Importantly, in its eclectic geographical coverage of Africa, this book unashamedly presents the good, the bad and the ugly of African childhood. The resilience, creativity, pains and triumphs of African childhood are skilfully woven together to present the myriad of lived experiences and aspirations of children from across Africa. As an important contribution to African childhood studies, this book has the potential to be used by policymakers to shape, sustain or change socio-cultural, economic and education systems that accommodate African childhood dynamics and experiences at different levels.

Download or read book Representing Africa in Children's Literature written by Vivian Yenika-Agbaw and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-12-13 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Representing Africa in Children’s Literature explores how African and Western authors portray youth in contemporary African societies, critically examining the dominant images of Africa and Africans in books published between 1960 and 2005. The book focuses on contemporary children’s and young adult literature set in Africa, examining issues regarding colonialism, the politics of representation, and the challenges posed to both "insiders" and "outsiders" writing about Africa for children.

Download or read book Peace and Conflict written by Irene Sabatini and published by Much-in-Little. This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ten-year-old Robert knows many things. He knows all about his hometown, Geneva, with its statues and cannons and underground tunnels and the longest bench in the World. He knows about the Red Cross and all the places his dad has been on his missions. He knows that his mum is writing a book about vampires and how long his older brother spends practicing his 'swag' poses in front of the mirror. He knows all about animals, too, because his Auntie Delphia is a vet in Zimbabwe. But still he has questions. Is his neighbour, Monsieur Renoir, really evil? Why did he leave a Victoria Cross medal on Robert's doorstep? And why has Auntie Delphia disappeared?

Download or read book Childhood in African Literature written by Eldred D. Jones and published by Africa World Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "African authors have consistently returned to childhood to find their personal as well as their racial roots. Far from being merely nostalgic yearnings for a lost paradise, many of the treatments of childhood as shown in articles in this issue have exposed a grim reality of cruelty, harshness, parental (particularly paternal) egocentrism and extraordinary bruisings of the vulnerable child psyche. Camara Laye may have portrayed a paradise state but Yvonne Vera has treated one of the cruelest features of childhood anywhere. African authors generally have been sternly responsible in their portrayal of childhood." -- Publisher's description