Reference Reviews

Lawrence Looks at Books

Student Encyclopedia of African Literature. Douglas Killam and Alicia Kerfoot. 339p. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2008. 978-0-313-33580-8; 2007-35356. $85.

Student Encyclopedia of African Literature This brief guide was designed to introduce students to modern African literature. Most of the 598 entries are of two types: biographies of authors or brief summaries of specific books, including plays, novels, and collections of poems or short stories. Several extended essays describe literature of the African Diaspora and historical topics like the Black Atlantic, apartheid and censorship. Articles on literary genres, including anthologies, biography, drama, criticism, literary theory, and young adult, popular, war and prison literature, are frequently divided geographically by region. Otherwise, thematic discussions are limited to feminism, black consciousness, sexual persuasion and religion in African literature. With few exceptions (the most notable being Olaudah Equiana, Ottobah Cugoano, Phillis Wheatley, Joseph Casely-Hayford and Olive Schreiner), the authors lived and wrote in the Twentieth Century. Biographical entries frequently include extensive lists of works. Topical essays provide the most suggestions for further research. However, a guide aimed at students could have used a thematic approach to the literature, if not in overview articles then perhaps addressed through the index. A list of writers by country would have also been helpful. South Africa is the only place name indicated in the index. Other national and cultural identities are not noted. Nonetheless, this volume provides a useful complement to Simon Gikandi's "Encyclopedia of African Literature"(Routledge, 2003). The selection of authors covered is different, and the title approach supports the volume's intended purpose as a reader's guide. As such, it is suitable for high school, public and academic libraries.

— John Lawrence