Vol. 32 No. 4 (2023): Nordic Journal of African Studies
Book Reviews

Nigerian Literary Imagination and the Nationhood Project, by Toyin Falola

PDF
  • Innocent Ngulube
Innocent Ngulube
University of Malawi
NJAS Logo
DOI: https://doi.org/10.53228/njas.v32i4.1067

Published 2023-12-14

Keywords

  • nationalism,
  • nation-statism,
  • ethnocentrism,
  • British colonialism,
  • postcolonial

How to Cite

Ngulube, I. (2023). Nigerian Literary Imagination and the Nationhood Project, by Toyin Falola. Nordic Journal of African Studies, 32(4), 424–425. https://doi.org/10.53228/njas.v32i4.1067

Copyright (c) 2023 Innocent Ngulube

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

This book review focuses on Toyin Falola's 2022 study entitled Nigerian Literary Imagination and the Nationhood Project. The review draws attention to how Falola historicises the evolution of Nigerian literature and its representation of national realities from the 1960s to the present. As the title of his book indicates, Falola particularly explores the ideological relationship between Nigerian literature and nationalism. His central argument is that, although its ideological relevance is challenged by opposing discourses of ethnocentrism and nation-statism, literature and its imagination contribute to the invention and re-invention of Nigeria as a nation. Illustratively, in this regard, I show how Falola develops his argument in three parts and eight chapters.

PDF