What is the African novel, and how should it be taught?The twenty-three essays of this volume address these two questions and in the process convey a wealth of information and ideas about the diverse regions, peoples, nations, languages, and writers of the African continent. Topics includeNgũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s favoring of indigenous languages and literary traditions over Europeanthe special place of Marxism in African lettersthe influence of Frantz Fanonwomen writers and the sub-Saharan novelthe Maghrebian novelthe novel and the griot epic in the SahelIslam in the West African novelnovels in Spanish from Equatorial Guineaapartheid and postapartheid fictionAfrican writers in the diasporaglobalization in East African fictionteaching Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart to students in different countriesthe Onitsha market romanceThe volume editor, Gaurav Desai, writes, “The point of the volume is to encourage a reading of Africa that is sensitive to its history of colonization but at the same time responsive to its present multiracial and multicultural condition.”