Librarian for African Studies
Northwestern University Library
1970 Campus Drive
Evanston, Il 60208
Overview
Studies in African literature course explores the view of Africa through writers such as - Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Okot p'Bitek, Armah, Marjorie O. Macgoye, Buchi Emecheta, Meja Mwangi, Phaswane Mpe, Ayi Kwei Armah, Teju Cole, Emmanuel Obiechina, David Maillu, Charles Mangua, Cyprian Ekwensi, Alex La Guma, and Obiechina K Obba - exploring such topics as rural settlements; indigenous languages and urbanization; African popular culture; African modernities; and precolonial Africa.
This guide is meant to aid you in finding works written by these authors, reviews, criticisms and other research articles and essays.
Databases
- Herskovits Library Search This link opens in a new windowThe Herskovits Library's collection includes photographs, maps, posters, videos, books in African languages, archival materials and manuscripts, as well as art objects, ephemeral materials and other artifacts, many of which are digitally accessible.
Search Tips:
Journal Search allows you to search by journal title and gives you the option to view journals in a category. For example, for this course, you would choose Languages and Literatures category and subcategory African Languages and Literatures.
You can also Browse publications by title or author. The collection has extensive holdings in the area of literature.
Locating/browsing publications in stacks/shelves
For Dewey Decimal call numbers, check the 800s:Literature located on 5th floor South. Example: David Maillu's For Mbatha and Rebeka is call no. Herskovits Library - 5 South 823.914 M221f
For Library of Congress call numbers, check the class P - Language and Literature and subclasses for details. These will be found on 5th Floor East.
Note that Library of Congress classification is by subject. For example, a text like Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. We Should All Be Feminists. New York: Anchor Books, 2015, is HQ1815.5 .A653 2015. HQ covers - Family. Marriage. Women
- African Writers Series This link opens in a new windowFor over 40 years, Heinemann's African Writers Series has published the key texts of modern African literature. It has a unique importance in the history of postcolonial writing. This online edition includes over 210 volumes of fiction, poetry, drama and non-fictional prose, including works by Chinua Achebe, Ama Ata Aidoo, Steve Biko, Buchi Emecheta, Nadine Gordimer, Bessie Head, Doris Lessing, Nelson Mandela, Dambudzo Marechera, Christopher Okigbo, Okot p'Bitek and Tayeb Salih.
Search Tips:
Use Publications search when the title of a publication is known.
Use Browse for a list of authors in the collection.
- Black Short Fiction and Folklore This link opens in a new windowContains stories, folktales, and short fiction by African, African American, and Caribbean authors.
- Black Women Writers This link opens in a new windowBlack Women Writers brings together the many voices of women from Africa and the African Diaspora. Offering fiction, poetry, and essays from three continents and 20 countries, the database gives a view of black women's struggles through time. New content is uploaded on a biweekly basis, giving users immediate access to a steadily growing treasury of extraordinary writings. The database currently features over 16,000 pages of poetry and prose.
- Gale Literature This link opens in a new windowGale Literature integrates Gale literary databases so you can research authors and their works, literary movements and genres. Databases include the Dictionary of Literary Biography Complete Online, Literature Criticism Online, Literature Resource Center, Something About the Author Online.
- Gale Literature Criticism This link opens in a new windowAn extensive compilation of literary commentary available representing a range of modern and historical views on authors and their works across regions, eras, and genre.
- Gale Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new windowProvides access to biographies, bibliographies, and critical analayses of authors from every age and literary discipline. Covers more than 120,000 novelists, essayist, poets, journalists, and other writers, with in-depth coverage of 2,500 of the most-studied authors. Includes links to: Dictionary of literary biography, Contemporary authors, Contemporary literary criticism, and more.
- Hathi Trust Digital Library This link opens in a new windowA partnership of more than sixty major research institutions with Google, the Hathi Trust Digital Library includes all the book images from these libraries that have been digitized by Google. Only out-of-copyright images (generally pre-1923) can be displayed, or others where the permission of the copyright holder has been obtained, though both in-copyright and out-of-copyright materials can be searched. Out-of-copyright books can be downloaded by Northwestern users who register with the site.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowDigitized, full-text versions of core scholarly journals across disciplines.While coverage of these journals goes back to the first issue, for most journals the most recent issues will be for 3-5 years ago.
- Literature Online This link opens in a new windowLiterature Online is the premier online resource for literary research today. Primary texts, criticism, and reference works are made available in a tailored research environment to provide a one-stop resource for the study and teaching of English literature.
- MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new windowCompiled by the Modern Language Association, the MLA International Bibliography lists articles and books in the fields of literature, language, and linguistics in the modern languages, as well as folklore, film studies, literary theory & criticism, dramatic arts, and historical aspects of printing and publishing.
- Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature This link opens in a new windowSubstantive, peer-reviewed, and regularly updated, the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature combines the speed and flexibility of digital with the rigorous standards of academic publishing. The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature is currently available to institutions worldwide via subscription and perpetual access and to individuals via subscription.
Francophone Africa authors
- Francophone writing overviewWith the advent of postcolonial studies, “francophone” has come to be assigned more specifically to writers from the former colonized nations of the French and Belgium empires who continue to write in the French language.
Authors
- Barry, Mariama – Senegal/Guinea.
- *Bessora - Gabon
- Beti, Mongo - Cameroon.
- Beyala, Calixthe -Cameroon
- Bugul, Ken -Sénégal
- Bâ, Mariama - Sénégal
- Ben Jelloun, Tahar - Morocco.
- Boudjedra, Rachid - Algeria
- Bouraoui, Nina - Algeria.
- Camara, Laye - Guinea
- Chedid, Andrée - Egypt.
- Chraïbi, Driss - Morocco.
- Dib, Mohammed - Algeria
- Diome, Fatou - Sénégal
- Diop, Boubacar Boris - Sénégal.
- Djaout, Tahar - Algeria.
- Djebar, Assia - Algeria.
- Fall, Aminatta Sow - Sénégal
- Khadra, Yasmina - Algeria. Real name, Mohammed Moulessehoul.
- Khatibi, Abdelkebir - Morocco.
- Mabanckou, Alain - Congo
- Meddeb, Abdelwahab - Tunisia.
- Memmi, Albert - Tunisia
- Mimouni, Rachid - Algeria.
- Miano, Léonora - Cameroon.
- Mokeddem, Malika - Algeria
- Ndiaye, Marie - Sénégal.
- Sebbar, Leila - Algeria
- Sembène, Ousmane - Sénégal.
- Senghor, Léopold Sédar - Sénégal
- Tadjo, Véronique - Ivory Coast.
- Waberi, Abdourahman - Djibouti.
- Werewere-Liking - Cameroon