"Here Comes Everything”: recent developments in the Nigerian novel’
This seminar presentation identifies Nigeria as the powerhouse of the modern African novel and briefly suggests reasons for this. Taking the last twenty years as its time-frame it demonstrates the remarkable diversity of the contemporary Nigerian novel in respect of subject-matter, theme and form. Despite that diversity, certain trends can be identified and the speaker examines the following amongst these: (i) a concern with key conflicts, such as the Delta region crisis; (ii) the emergence of the LGBTQ-themed novel; (iii) a willingness to experiment with focalization and to explore ways of seeing, knowing, telling; (iv) a concern with Afropolitanism.

Chris Dunton is an alumnus of Wadham College, Oxford, and a specialist in African Literature and in Rhetoric Studies applied to African texts. Now an independent scholar, he has worked at universities in Nigeria, Libya and South Africa, and as a freelance scholar in Cameroon and Peru. Most recently he was Professor and Dean of Humanities at the National University of Lesotho.
Date: 17 November 2022, 15:30 (Thursday, 6th week, Michaelmas 2022)
Venue: St Antony's College, 62 Woodstock Road OX2 6JF
Venue Details: Pavilion Room
Speaker: Chris Dunton
Organising department: Oxford School of Global and Area Studies
Organiser: African Studies Centre (University of Oxford)
Organiser contact email address: events@africa.ox.ac.uk
Hosts: African Studies Centre (University of Oxford), Centre for Global History
Part of: African Studies Seminar Series
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Members of the University only
Editors: Amy Crane, Adrita Mitra