Ghanaian Popular Fiction

STEPHANIE NEWELL is George M. Bodman Professor of English at Yale University. Her works include Histories of Dirt in West Africa: Media and Urban Life in Colonial and Postcolonial Lagos (2020) and The Power to Name: A History of Anonymity in Colonial West Africa (2013), finalist for the ASA Best Book Prize 2014.

• Introduction - the relevance of postcolonial theories to the study of West African popular literatures; the proverbial space in Ghanian popular literatures; "making up their own minds" -readers, interpretations and the difference of view; Ghanian readers' comments on the role of authors and the function of literature; "pen-pictures" of readers - the early days of Ghanian popular fiction; an incident of colonial intertextuality - the adventures of the black girl in her search for Mr Shaw; the "book famine" in postcolonial West Africa; "two things may be alike but never the same" - E.K. Mickson's parodic techniques; "those mean and empty-headed men" - the shifting representations of wealth and women in two Ghanian popular novels; "reading the right sort of books and articles" - Kate Abbam's Obaa Sima; uprising genres -Akosua Gyamfuaa-Fofie's romantic fiction; conclusion - popular novels and international African fiction.

Fascinating ... Like most good critical works, it kindles interest in its subject, and for this alone Ghanaian Popular Fiction deserves praise. More than that, it is a perceptive study which has made a significant advance in its field