{"product_id":"bearing-witness-readers-writers-and-the-novel-in-nigeria-9780691058290","title":"Bearing Witness: Readers, Writers, and the Novel in Nigeria","description":"\u003cp\u003eGreed, frustrated love, traffic jams, infertility, politics, polygamy. These--together with depictions of traditional village life and the impact of colonialism made familiar to Western readers through Chinua Achebe's writing--are the stuff of Nigerian fiction. Bearing Witness examines this varied content and the determined people who, against all odds, write, publish, sell, and read novels in Africa's most populous nation. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Drawing on interviews with Nigeria's writers, publishers, booksellers, and readers, surveys, and a careful reading of close to 500 Nigerian novels--from lightweight romances to literary masterpieces--Wendy Griswold explores how global cultural flows and local conflicts meet in the production and reception of fiction. She argues that Nigerian readers and writers form a reading class that unabashedly believes in progress, rationality, and the slow-but-inevitable rise of a reading culture. But they do so within a society that does not support their assumptions and does not trust literature, making them modernists in a country that is simultaneously premodern and postmodern. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Without privacy, reliable electricity, political freedom, or even social toleration of bookworms, these Nigerians write and read political satires, formula romances, war stories, complex gender fiction, blood-and-sex crime capers, nostalgic portraits of village life, and profound explorations of how decent people get by amid urban chaos. Bearing Witness is an inventive and moving work of cultural sociology that may be the most comprehensive sociological analysis of a literary system ever written.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Wendy Griswold\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Princeton University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 06\/19\/2000\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 376\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.19lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.82d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780691058290\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e 01\/01\/2001 pg. 899\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWendy Griswold\u003c\/b\u003e is joint Professor of Sociology and English and Comparative Literature at Northwestern University. She is the author of \u003ci\u003eRenaissance Revivals: City Comedy and Revenge Tragedy in the London Theatre, 1576-1980\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eCultures and Societies in a Changing World\u003c\/i\u003e as well as coeditor of \u003ci\u003eLiterature and Social Practice\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003ePlaces within, places beyond: the question of Norwegian regionalism in literature\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Princeton University Press","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":40087124836467,"sku":"9.78E+12","price":61.95,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0555\/9255\/0515\/products\/img_6afd8043-1951-44ae-af34-4ecf75fb95b3.jpg?v=1652538271","url":"https:\/\/bookstorenmore.com\/en-de\/products\/bearing-witness-readers-writers-and-the-novel-in-nigeria-9780691058290","provider":"Bookstore N More","version":"1.0","type":"link"}