Craft and Concerns in Helene Cooper’s 'The House at Sugar Beach'

The book brings together twenty three new essays on aspects of literary stylistics, narrative and sign studies in the key literary genres of prose, poetry and drama. Using the views of leading exponents of literary stylistics, narratology and also semiotics, the essayists engage critically a range of representative works by major African writers such as Ananda Devi, Sylvie Kande, Adelaïde Fassinou, Calixthe Beyala, Ben Okri, T. O. Echewa, Ngugi, Nuruddin Farah, Aminatta Forna, Niyi Osundare, Tanure Ojaide, Isaac William Wauchope and various Anglophone Tanzanian poets as well as Mvula Ya Nangolo, Barbara Kimenye, Hellen Cooper and Donato Ndongo. Other essayists offer detailed stylo-semiotic studies in Ghanaian theatre and drama, Cameroonian drama, and drama from Swaziland. A variety of analytical and methodological approaches are brought together by the essayists of the book in an attempt to collectively accentuate the aesthetics of contemporary African literature. This volume of critical studies immerses general readers and students of literature into the art-world of tales, their creators/tellers and the craft of tale-making in contemporary Africa.