In the late 1970s, the University of the West Indies, Mona, was not only a space of discussion of Marxism and social revolution; it was also a space of discussion of Africa—the African presence in the Caribbean, of course, but also African politics and culture. This was, after all, the era of African liberation movements. So, not surprisingly, for me and fellow undergraduates, reading African literature was part of what it meant to assume a progressive Black identity. In particular we read the authors published in the available Heinemann African Writers Series, launched in 1962 with Chinua Achebe as editorial advisor. Naturally, we read Achebe’s own acclaimed novels, Things Fall Apart (1958), No Longer at Ease (1960), and Arrow of God (1964). We also read the hugely influential Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o: Weep Not, Child (1964), The River Between (1965), A Grain of Wheat (1967), and the profoundly significant Petals of...

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