{"title":"Simon Gikandi","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"maps-of-englishness-book-simon-gikandi-9780231105996","title":"Maps of Englishness","description":"Gikandi explores the politics of identity to analyze how the colonial experience inspired narrative forms that changed the nature of the English identity by surveying the British imperial tradition since the nineteenth century. He provides detailed readings of the works of Trollope, Carlyle, and others; through the narratives of imperial women travelers such as Mary Kingsley and Mary Seacole; and through Africanist texts by Joseph Conrad, Graham Greene and postcolonialists such as Salman Rushdie and Joan Riley.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49599974408465,"sku":"GOR006830871","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50265172705553,"sku":"CIN0231105991G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0231105991.jpg?v=1751291232"},{"product_id":"slavery-and-the-culture-of-taste-book-simon-gikandi-9780691160979","title":"Slavery and the Culture of Taste","description":"It would be easy to assume that, in the eighteenth century, slavery and the culture of taste - the world of politeness, manners, and aesthetics - existed as separate and unequal domains, unrelated in the spheres of social life. But to the contrary, Slavery and the Culture of Taste demonstrates that these two areas of modernity were surprisingly entwined. Ranging across Britain, the antebellum South, and the West Indies, and examining vast archives, including portraits, period paintings, personal narratives, and diaries, Simon Gikandi illustrates how the violence and ugliness of enslavement actually shaped theories of taste, notions of beauty, and practices of high culture, and how slavery's impurity informed and haunted the rarified customs of the time. Gikandi focuses on the ways that the enslavement of Africans and the profits derived from this exploitation enabled the moment of taste in European - mainly British - life, leading to a transformation of bourgeois ideas regarding freedom and selfhood. He explores how these connections played out in the immense fortunes made in the West Indies sugar colonies, supporting the lavish lives of English barons and altering the ideals that defined middle-class subjects. Discussing how the ownership of slaves turned the American planter class into a new aristocracy, Gikandi engages with the slaves' own response to the strange interplay of modern notions of freedom and the realities of bondage, and he emphasizes the aesthetic and cultural processes developed by slaves to create spaces of freedom outside the regimen of enforced labor and truncated leisure. Through a close look at the eighteenth century's many remarkable documents and artworks, Slavery and the Culture of Taste sets forth the tensions and contradictions entangling a brutal practice and the distinctions of civility.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49730409758993,"sku":"NGR9780691160979","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51005645816081,"sku":"NIN9780691160979","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53605457264913,"sku":"GOR007759290","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/069116097X.jpg?v=1750700248"},{"product_id":"reading-chinua-achebe-book-simon-gikandi-9780435080570","title":"Reading Chinua Achebe","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49910553346321,"sku":"CIN0435080571G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0435080571.jpg?v=1750975605"},{"product_id":"encyclopedia-of-african-literature-book-simon-gikandi-9780415230193","title":"Encyclopedia of African Literature","description":"The most comprehensive reference work on African literature to date, this book covers all the key historical and cultural issues in the field. The Encyclopedia contains over 600 entries covering criticism and theory, African literature's development as a field of scholarship, and studies of established and lesser-known writers and their texts. While the greatest proportion of literary work in Africa has been a product of the twentieth century, the Encyclopedia also covers the literature back to the earliest eras of story-telling and oral transmission, making this a unique and valuable resource for those studying social sciences as well as humanities. This work includes cross-references, suggestions for further reading, and a comprehensive index.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50353331011857,"sku":"CIN0415230195G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0415230195.jpg?v=1751292540"},{"product_id":"encyclopedia-of-african-literature-book-simon-gikandi-9780415549622","title":"Encyclopedia of African Literature","description":"The most comprehensive reference work on African literature to date, this book covers all the key historical and cultural issues in the field. The Encyclopedia contains over 600 entries covering criticism and theory, African literature's development as a field of scholarship, and studies of established and lesser-known writers and their texts. While the greatest proportion of literary work in Africa has been a product of the twentieth century, the Encyclopedia also covers the literature back to the earliest eras of story-telling and oral transmission, making this a unique and valuable resource for those studying social sciences as well as humanities. This work includes cross-references, suggestions for further reading, and a comprehensive index.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":50697073983761,"sku":"NGR9780415549622","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52521951625489,"sku":"NLS9780415549622","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0415549620.jpg?v=1751006480"},{"product_id":"reading-chinua-achebe-book-simon-gikandi-9780852555279","title":"Reading Chinua Achebe","description":"Analysis of the writings of Chinua Achebe aimed at students of literature.  Simon Gikandi has set out to reveal '...the very nature of [Achebe's] creativity, its prodigious complexity and richness...its paradoxes and ambiguities. This is scholarship of real stature and supersedes all other studies of Achebe's writing. It comes at a good time. Achebe's literary reputation is equal to that of any living author and a substantial critical canon has been established. - G.D. Killam, Professor of English, University of Guelph   Kenya: EAEP","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50931873054993,"sku":"GOR001899147","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51008951910673,"sku":"NIN9780852555279","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51330426437905,"sku":"CIN085255527XVG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52485992349969,"sku":"NLS9780852555279","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/085255527X.jpg?v=1751044770"},{"product_id":"oxford-history-of-the-novel-in-english-book-simon-gikandi-9780199765096","title":"The Oxford History of the Novel in English","description":"Why did the novel take such a long time to emerge in the colonial world? And, what cultural work did it come to perform in societies where subjects were not free and modes of social organization diverged from the European cultural centers where the novel gained its form and audience? Answering these questions and more, Volume 11, The Novel in Africa and the Caribbean since 1950 explores the institutions of cultural production that exerted influence in late colonialism, from missionary schools and metropolitan publishers to universities and small presses. How these structures provoke and respond to the literary trends and social peculiarities of Africa and the Caribbean impacts not only the writing and reading of novels in those regions, but also has a transformative effect on the novel as a global phenomenon.  Together, the volume's 32 contributing experts tell a story about the close relationship between the novel and the project of decolonization, and explore the multiple ways in which novels enable readers to imagine communities beyond their own and thus made this form of literature a compelling catalyst for cultural transformation. The authors show that, even as the novel grows in Africa and the Caribbean as a mark of the elites' mastery of European form, it becomes the essential instrument for critiquing colonialism and for articulating the new horizons of cultural nationalism. Within this historical context, the volume examines works by authors such as Chinua Achebe, Nadine Gordimer, George Lamming, Jamaica Kincaid, V.S. Naipaul, Zoe Wicomb, J. M. Coetzee, and many others.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51182924005649,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51182926201105,"sku":"NIN9780199765096","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52616776974609,"sku":"NLS9780199765096","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/019976509X.jpg?v=1751037956"},{"product_id":"ngugi-wa-thiong-o-book-simon-gikandi-9780521480062","title":"Ngugi wa Thiong'o","description":"Kenyan dramatist and novelist Ngugi wa Thiong'o is a hugely influential African writer respected not only for his creative work but also for his criticism of wider cultural issues - issues such as nation and narration, power and performance, language and identity, empire and postcoloniality. Simon Gikandi's study, first published in 2000, offers a comprehensive analysis of all Ngugi's published work and explores the development of the major novels and plays against a background of colonialism and decolonisation in Kenya. Gikandi places the works in a context that examines the way they engage with the changing history of Africa. Tracing Ngugi's career from the 1960s through to his role in shaping a radical culture in East Africa in the 1970s and his imprisonment and exile in the 1980s, this book provides fresh insight into the author's life and the historic events that produced his work.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52131134177553,"sku":"NLS9780521480062","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52735425249553,"sku":"NIN9780521480062","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780521480062.jpg?v=1757508000"},{"product_id":"ngugi-wa-thiong-o-book-simon-gikandi-9780521119016","title":"Ngugi wa Thiong'o","description":"Kenyan dramatist and novelist Ngugi wa Thiong'o is a hugely influential African writer respected not only for his creative work but also for his criticism of wider cultural issues - issues such as nation and narration, power and performance, language and identity, empire and postcoloniality. Simon Gikandi's study, first published in 2000, offers a comprehensive analysis of all Ngugi's published work and explores the development of the major novels and plays against a background of colonialism and decolonisation in Kenya. Gikandi places the works in a context that examines the way they engage with the changing history of Africa. Tracing Ngugi's career from the 1960s through to his role in shaping a radical culture in East Africa in the 1970s and his imprisonment and exile in the 1980s, this book provides fresh insight into the author's life and the historic events that produced his work.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52483992518929,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52483993698577,"sku":"NLS9780521119016","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780521119016.jpg?v=1759855596"},{"product_id":"ngugi-book-simon-gikandi-9781847012142","title":"Ngugi","description":"First-hand accounts of how Ngugi wa Thiong'o's life and work have intersected, and the multiple forces that have converged to make him one of the greatest writers to come out of Africa in the twentieth century.  This collection of essays reflects on the life and work of Ngugi wa Thiong'o, who celebrated his 80th birthday in 2018.  Drawing from a wide range of contributors, including writers, critics, publishers and activists, the volume traces the emergence of Ngugi as a novelist in the early 1960s, his contribution to the African culture of letters at its moment of inception, and his global artistic life in the twenty-first century. Here we have both personal andcritical reflections on the different phases of the writer's life: there are poems from friends and admirers, commentaries from his co-workers in public theatre in Kenya in the 1970s and 1980s, and from his political associates in the fight for democracy, and  contributions on his role as an intellectual of decolonization, as well as his experiences in the global art world. Included also are essays on Ngugi's role outside the academy, in the world of education, community theatre, and activism. In addition to tributes from other authors who were influenced by Ngugi, the collection contains hitherto unknown materials that are appearing in English for the first time. Both a celebration of the writer, and a rethinking of his legacy, this book brings together three generations of Ngugi readers. We have memories and recollections from the people he worked with closely in the 1960s, the students that he taught atthe University of Nairobi in the 1970s, his political associates during his exile in the 1980s, and the people who worked with him as he embarked on a new life and career in the United States in the 1990s. First-hand accounts reveal how Ngugi's life and work have intersected, and the multiple forces that have converged to make him one of the greatest writers to come out of Africa in the twentieth century.    Simon Gikandi is Robert Schirmer Professor of English, Princeton University. He is President of the MLA and was editor of its journal PMLA, from 2011-2016.  Ndirangu Wachanga is Professor of Media Studies and Information Science at the University of Wisconsin. He is also the authorized documentary biographer of Professors Ali A. Mazrui, Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Micere Mugo.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52530782241041,"sku":"NLS9781847012142","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53037015236881,"sku":"NIN9781847012142","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781847012142.jpg?v=1760653816"},{"product_id":"slavery-and-the-culture-of-taste-book-simon-gikandi-9780691140667","title":"Slavery and the Culture of Taste","description":"Ranging across Britain, the antebellum South, and the West Indies, this title illustrates how the violence and ugliness of enslavement actually shaped theories of taste, notions of beauty, and practices of high culture, and how slavery's impurity informed and haunted the rarified customs of the time.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53480647065873,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53480647426321,"sku":"CIN0691140669G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780691140667.jpg?v=1777550463"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-simon-gikandi.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}