Fifty Years of the Nigerian Novel, 1952-2001

From the first appearance of the form in Nigeria, in the early work of Amos Tutuola, it is already possible to say that the Nigerian novel is traditional, in that it has sought consciously to meet the requirements of the art. It comes of age, that is, at the time it first begins calling forth critical efforts at interpretation and understanding by taking place in a form which is also traditionally very important for a literary culture, the form of the heroic narrative, in Achebe s Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God. On the one hand, it is as if the tradition wishes to leave no one in doubt that it is literary; on the other, the movement from fantasy to the heroic is a kind of sign-signal that this is a distinctive tradition within the general worldwide one to which it also connects in detail.

Autorentext

A.N. AKWANYA is the Head, Department of English and Literary Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, having previously served as the Dean of the Graduate School of the same university.Dr ANOHU formerly taught in the Department of English & Literary Studies, University of Nigeria and is currently having a stint in the private sector.