Something Torn and New: An African RenaissanceNovelist Ngugi wa Thiong'o has been a force in African literature for decades: Since the 1970s, when he gave up the English language to commit himself to writing in African languages, his foremost concern has been the critical importance of language to culture. In Something Torn and New, Ngugi explores Africa's historical, economic, and cultural fragmentation by slavery, colonialism, and globalization. Throughout this tragic history, a constant and irrepressible force was Europhonism: the replacement of native names, languages, and identities with European ones. The result was the dismemberment of African memory. Seeking to remember language in order to revitalize it, Ngugi's quest is for wholeness. Wide-ranging, erudite, and hopeful, Something Torn and New is a cri de coeur to save Africa's cultural future. |
Contents
CHAPTER TWO REMEMBERING VISIONS | |
CHAPTER THREE MEMORY RESTORATION AND AFRICAN | |
CHAPTER FOUR FROM COLOR TO SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS South | |
Acknowledgements | |
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African idea African intellectual African languages African literature African memory African renaissance African writers AfricanAmerican Afromodernity Aimé Césaire American anticolonial resistance Bantu Biko body bourgeoisie Brathwaite British C.L.R. James capitalist modernity Caribbean century Césaire colonial Congo continent crypt cultural dark Dhlomo Dhomhnaill diaspora diasporic African Diop dismembered dismemberment Dubois’s English EuroAmerican Europe Europe’s European languages European memory European Renaissance Europhone Fanon Frantz Fanon French Gaelic Garvey Gĩkũyũ Gordimer heritage human Ibid Idea of Africa independence Ireland Irish keepers of memory Kenya land linguicide linguistic Mandela Marx Masilela McMillanStewart Lecture means of memory mourning Mqhayi names nation nationstates native negritude Negro Nketia Ntongela Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill Osiris PanAfrican Congress People’s plantations poetry political postcolonial reconnection remembering slave slavery social South Africa Spenser Steve Biko struggles talk Thabo Mbeki Thagana theme Thiong’o tongue Torok translation University Press V. Y. Mudimbe vernacular Vilakazi W.E.B. Dubois Waiyaki writing Xhosa Zulu