Africa's Narrative Geographies

Building on the emerging field of geocriticism, this book explores Africa's complex, dynamic literary landscapes, proffering new methods for understanding the geographies of African literature. Using both cultural geography and political ecology, Crowley offers fresh insights into key authors' imagined geographies of resistance and alterity.

“Africa’s Narrative Geographies: Charting the Intersections of Geocriticism and Postcolonial Studies addresses these overlapping and mutually reinforcing critical practices, while also providing analyses of key works of modern African literature. It is a welcome addition to the growing body of scholarship involving spatial and postcolonial approaches to literary studies.” (Sirsha Nandi, Transnational Literature, Vol. 11 (1), December, 2019)

“Crowley’s attentiveness to and illustrations of how ‘the nature of place provides the means for both hegemonic control and the challenge to hegemony’, which inspires a perspective that precludes any easy dissociation of resistance and liberation from the power to dominate. … the reader gets rich and detailed insight into the historical, social, and political aspects of the matters of place, space, and scales in African literature.” (Sten Pultz Moslund, ARIEL, January, 2018)

“The breadth of primary readings covered in Africa’s Narrative Geographies, which span across each individual author’s oeuvre, as well as the generic diversity of the works covered (including poetry, prose, and drama), is a real strength … . Africa’s Narrative Geographies will be of interest to students and scholars looking for an entry-point to the spatial turn in African literary studies. … a welcome addition to this emerging subdiscipline.” (Madhu Krishnan, Research in African Literatures, Vol. 47 (4), 2016)

"This book is a valuable contribution to what is being termed the geo-humanities. Crowley combines an erudite understanding of geographers' theorizations of place with a rich, careful reading of both postcolonial studies and key novels from Africa. He breaks new ground in exciting ways in the interstices between geography, comparative world literature, and African studies." - Garth A. Myers, Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of Urban International Studies, Trinity College, USA

"Offering detailed and insightful readings of work by Senghor, Ngugi, Farah, Head, and Abani, Africa's Narrative Geographies is an admirable example of the burgeoning field of geocritical studies, fully validating Crowley's claim that it is 'imperative to think geographically, to be attuned to the dynamics of space, place, and scale.'" - Simon Lewis, Professor of English, College of Charleston, USA

Dustin Crowley is a Lecturer at the University of Kansas, USA.