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African Novels and the Question of Orality
African Novels and the Question of Orality Author:Eileen Julien Eileen Julien sees the search for oral origins in African literature as a quest for African authenticity. She critiques and revises the conceptual category of orality as it has been understood and used by scholars, stressing the transformation of narrative genres as an index of socio-political relations and authorial vision. Julien examines the ... more »premise that the connection between oral tradition and the novel is a sign of continuity and authenticity; she demonstrates that the premise is, in part, a response to the dominance of Eurocentric criticism. Critics in the West and in Africa have come to accept an essentialist view that writing is European and orality, African.« less