Deadline: 31 January 2011
1986, remains an important landmark in the history and evolution of African literature. This importance is not specifically because Wole Soyinka won the Nobel Prize for literature as an African for the first time or because the Prize came to Africa for the very first time or because Soyinka lifted something like a barrier and gave the African writer a sense of pride, but because the drama of winning that Prize reaffirms Africa’s contributions to world literature as monumental. And this in turn marks the beginning of a new epoch in the historical development of African literature. Soyinka will remain a colossus among conscientious writers and political analyst of the African continent for as long as the world of literature shapes our sense of things, of history and culture, politics and folklife, familial and civic life, gender issues, despondency and hope, life, death and life. 2011 will mark the silver jubilee of the Nobel coming to Africa for the very first time.
Twenty five years after winning the Nobel Prize for literature Soyinka’s oeuvres still continue to garner critical, scholarly, and popular acclaim. This project will draw together scholarly contributions that consider specifically Soyinka’s post-Nobel oeuvres, those before the Nobel and their influence on contemporary African literature, and any new perspectives that might cast new critical light on them.
This special issue is not an attempt at calibrating the stature of Soyinka as a consummate artist after winning the Nobel, because some scholars and critics continue to argue that there appears to be a certain paradigm shift from the playwright’s recurrent Ogunian metaphysical evocations to a more ferocious topicality which gives expression to the African continent’s permanent state of transition, but among other things, it will reaccentuate his motto arid abiding philosophy: “Justice is the first condition of humanity”. Invariably, the goal of this project is to create a scholarly dialogue concerning Soyinka’s post-Nobel writings. The subject of this special issue is therefore, Soyinka, but the grand narrative spans beyond Soyinka. It will situate around the African continent. Contributors should endeavour to privilege this grand narrative, indicating if there are discernable contours in the graph of Soyinka’s oeuvres after the Nobel, while emphasising how the post-Nobel of Soyinka consciously calls us back to that decrepit hole in our collective worlds.
Detailed proposals/abstracts (250 words) for articles of 5-6000 words, should be sent to the guest editors as email attachment: evba25@gmail.com The deadline for submissions of proposals/abstracts is January2011. Reply for accepted proposals will be sent three weeks after. Completed essays should be sent not later than 30 April 2011. The special issue of the journal in UNISA will appear September 2011. All enquiries should be directed to the email addresses above. Please completed papers/essays should not exceed 6ooo words in order to accommodate as many critical voices as possible. Contributors can equally do reviews of Soyinka’s post-Nobel writings, at most 1000 words.