Proximate Histories

Entangled Temporalities in Contemporary African Fiction

Russell West-Pavlov (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

192 Seiten

2026
Routledge (Verlag)
978-1-041-28366-9 (ISBN)

Infos

This book explores how African fiction offers revolutionary models for understanding temporality and reimagining history in our catastrophe-ridden twenty-first century. Examining eight works from diverse African writers—ranging from Achebe’s classic Things Fall Apart, via works by Coetzee and Dangarembga, to contemporary novels by Makumbi, Mengiste, Mujila, Owuor and Serpell—the book demonstrates how these authors eschew linear Eurocentric historicism in favour of bold, immediate confrontations with history in the making and its temporal fabric. Drawing from fiction across Africa, the book proposes a composite theory of ‘proximate historiographies’ encompassing the entangled, plaited, expansive, interpellative, somatic, and kinetic temporalities that emerge from these pathbreaking works. Taken together, they reveal Africa as a laboratory of futurity rather than a place outside history. The volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of African literature, postcolonial studies, and contemporary fiction. It will also appeal to those working in environmental humanities, decolonial theory, and innovative approaches to historiography.

Autor

Russell West-Pavlov is Professor of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures at the University of Tübingen. Major publications include Eastern African Literatures (Oxford, 2018), AfrikAffekt (Narr, 2020), Heterotropic Theatres (Narr, 2025), and the edited volume The Global South and Literature (Cambridge, 2018).

Inhalt

Introduction: Proximate Times: Coetzee, In the Heart of the Country

PART 1 History and Time

Chapter 1: Laminated Histories: Achebe, Things Fall Apart

Chapter 2: Expansive Time: Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions

PART 2 Multiscalar Time

Chapter 3: Interpellative Time: Mujila, Tram 83

Chapter 4: Oceanic Time: Owuor, The Dragonfly Sea

PART 3 Proximate Histories

Chapter 5: Somatic Histories: Makumbi, Kintu

Chapter 6: Plaited Histories: Serpell, The Old Drift

Chapter 7: Kinetic History: Mengiste, The Shadow King

Coda: Signs of the Times

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 11.6.2026
• Zusatzinfo: 1 Halftones, black and white; 1 Illustrations, black and white
• Verlagsort: London
• Sprache: englisch
• Maße: 156 x 234 mm
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Spezielle Soziologien
• ISBN-10: 1-041-28366-0 / 1041283660
• ISBN-13: 978-1-041-28366-9 / 9781041283669
• Zustand: Neuware