African Freedom

Phyllis Taoua is Professor at the University of Arizona in Francophone Studies where she teaches courses on Africa and the French-speaking world. She is affiliated with Africana Studies, World Literature and the Human Rights program.

• Introduction. The meaning of freedom in Africa; 1. The self: unfettering identity after independence; 2. Gender: women's engagement with freedom; 3. The nation: from liberation to meaningful freedom; 4. Global Africa: pillaging with less impunity in the era of neoliberal capital; 5. The spiritual realm: Okonkwo's unraveling and other responses; Conclusion.

'African Freedom: How Africa Responded to Independence is a refreshingly ambitious work of synthesis that revisits many canonical works of postcolonial African fiction and cinema to reframe them as creative explorations of the idea of freedom. It places these works in dialogue with the key political figures of anticolonial struggle and national liberation and argues that the creative voices on freedom both critique the limitations of the new political dispensation after independence and keep alive an aspirational yearning for 'meaningful' freedom that is more than just an ideal.' Eleni Coundouriotis, University of Connecticut