| Description |
1 online resource (x, 282 pages) |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Contents |
Crediting African literature -- Reciprocity -- Sovereign debt -- Of confidence and markets -- Women and the cowrie zone -- The law's monopoly on violence -- The problem of succession -- Modern debt and the civil service -- Corruption -- Discipline |
| Summary |
"In the decade before and after independence, Nigerians not only adopted the novel but reinvented the genre. Nigerian novels imagined the new state, with its ideals of the rule of law, state sovereignty, and a centralized administration. Debt, Law, Realism argues that Nigerian novels were not written for a Western audience, as often stated, but to teach fellow citizens how to envision the state. The first Nigerian novels were overwhelmingly realist because realism was a way to convey the understanding shared by all subject to the rule of law. Debt was an important theme used to illustrate the social trust needed to live with strangers. But the novelists felt an ambivalence towards the state, which had been imposed by colonial military might. Even as they embraced the ideal of the rule of law, they kept alive a memory of other ways of governing themselves. Many of the first novelists - including Chinua Achebe - were Igbos, a people who had been historically stateless, and for whom justice had been a matter of interpersonal relations, consensus, and reciprocity, rather than a citizen's subordination to a higher authority. Debt, Law, Realism reads African novels as political philosophy, offering important lessons about the foundations of social trust, the principle of succession, and the nature of sovereignty, authority, and law."-- Provided by publisher. |
| Local Note |
eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America |
| Subject |
Nigerian fiction (English) -- History and criticism.
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Realism in literature.
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Nigeria -- In literature.
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State, The, in literature.
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Sovereignty in literature.
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Debt in literature.
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Politics and literature -- Nigeria -- History -- 20th century.
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LITERARY CRITICISM / African |
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Debt in literature. |
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Literature. |
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Nigerian fiction (English) |
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Politics and literature. |
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Realism in literature. |
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Sovereignty in literature. |
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State, The, in literature. |
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Nigeria. |
| Chronological Term |
1900-1999 |
| Genre/Form |
Electronic books.
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Criticism, interpretation, etc.
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History.
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| Other Form: |
Print version: Kortenaar, Neil ten. Debt, law, realism. Montreal ; Kingston ; London ; Chicago : McGill-Queen's University Press, 2021 0228006287 9780228006282 (OCoLC)1202760387 |
| ISBN |
9780228007814 ePUB |
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9780228007807 electronic book |
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0228007801 electronic book |
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