In My Life Time

"This book focuses on the first works produced by three talented West Africans who felt an urge to express themselves in print. These creative individuals were pioneers in a literary movement that gathered force and swept across Africa with remarkable speed in the latter half of the twentieth century, producing distinctive national literatures in new nation states that were in the process of freeing themselves from the legacy of colonial rule. Writers such as these helped to shape and reinforce that movement toward self-definition by creating works that were indisputably African. How did such writers emerge? What led them to write? Which influences and life experiences proved to be most decisive in their formation? Why did they choose to express themselves in the ways that they did? This book attempts to answer such questions by examining in detail each author's earliest compositions and by charting the direction of his later development. What is most striking when viewing these three writers side by side is how remarkably different they are from one another. They reflect the cultural diversity one finds today in Africa, where contesting forces of tradition and modernity have transformed the lives of individuals in a variety of interesting ways. Amos Tutuola, Cyprian Ekwensi and Ayi Kwei Armah are products of this changing social environment, and each has responded in a creative manner to the peculiar pressures, challenges, and opportunities in such a world. By following their own instincts and proclivities as writers, they have enlarged and collectively enriched the verbal culture of contemporary Africa."--Publisher's website.