Weary Sons of Conrad: White Fiction Against the Grain of Africa's Dark Heart

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Peter Lang, 2002 - Foreign Language Study - 344 pages
"Is it possible for European and North American men to depict Africa in a wise and non-exploitative manner?" That's the question Cooper (African studies, U. of Cape Town, South Africa) hopes to answer in her examination of writers whose opposition to racism, the nature of imperialism, and gender stereotypes make them "weary" inheritors of the legacy of Joseph Conrad. She borrows concepts and methodologies from Said's Orientalism, postmodernism, Lacanian theory, and other areas, rejecting a unified approach. Among the works she examines are Adam Thorpe's Pieces of Light, Alan Hollinghurst's The Swimming-Pool Library, Patrick Roscoe's The Lost Oasis, William Boyd's Brazzaville Beach, Will Self's Great Apes, Peter Hoeg' s The Woman and the Ape, and Lawrence Norfolk's The Pope's Rhinoceros. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

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About the author (2002)

The Author: Brenda Cooper is Professor of African Studies and English at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. She received her Ph.D. in East and West African fiction from the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom. Her previous books include To Lay These Secrets Open: Evaluating African Writing and Magical Realism in West African Fiction: Seeing with a Third Eye. She has published numerous books on African literature for use in high schools, in addition to articles in scholarly journals, book chapters, and entries in encyclopedias.

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