The Word Behind Bars and the Paradox of Exile

by Kofi Anyidoho, Jane Guyer

Overview

The Word Behind Bars and the Paradox of Exile grew out of a workshop that brought together a group of African writers, including many who suffered imprisonment in their home countries and/or exile abroad. For some, the workshop prompted their first attempt to write about their experiences and to compare them with others whose life and art had come under similar constraints.

This collection represents their assessments—in prose, poetry, and drama—of the many facets of the exile experience. The papers are as graphic, eloquent, and thought-provoking as they are varied in their subject matter and mode of communication. A powerful fusion of the personal and the political, The Word Behind Bars and the Paradox of Exile offers a timely perspective on conditions of literary production in many parts of Africa today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780810113923
Publisher:	Northwestern University Press
Publication date:	08/20/1997
Edition description:	1
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Kofi Anyidoho is a poet, literary scholar, and a specialist in African and African-heritage literatures. He is a senior faculty member of the Department of English and the acting director of the School of Performing Arts at the University of Ghana, Legon.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Foreword
Jane I. Guyer

Introduction
Prison as Exile/Exile as Prison: Circumstance, Metaphor, and a Paradox of Modern African Literatures
Kofi Anyidoho

Of Orality and Memory in Prison and Exile (A Personal Note on How to Survive the Chaos of Incarceration)
Jack Mapanje

Containing Cockroaches (Memories of Incareration Reconstructed in Exile)
Jack Mapanje

Exile and Creativity: A Prolonged Writer's Block
Micere Githae Mugo

Poems for Liberation of the Land
Micere Githae Mugo

The Locus and Logos of Exile
Aliko Songolo

Conditions in the Third World: A Playwright's Soliloquy on His Experiences
Ola Rotimi

How Not to Rule the Third World: A Parable Playlet
Ola Rotimi

Cartoons in Cameroon: Anger and Political Derision
Célestin Monga

Earth and Sound: The Place of Poetry
M. Nourbese Philip

Whyose Idea Was It Anyway
M. Nourbese Philip

Preface to Testimonies of Exile: On Territories, Tied Tongues, and Translations
Abena P. A. Busia

On Oppression, Prison, and Exile—Poems
Kofi Anyidoho

Through the Bars: The Prison Experience in Poetry
Dennis Brutus

On Prison and Exile—Poems
Dennis Brutus

A Song of Home, A Song of Exile
Keorapetse Kgositsile

Notes
Appendix