03724nam a22005175i 4500001001800000003000900018005001700027007001500044008004100059020003700100024003500137050001400172072001500186072002300201072001400224100014900238245012600387250001800513264008500531300003300616336002600649337002600675338003600701347002400737490005200761505040000813520145301213650002302666650002402689650002802713650002902741650002902770650002402799650002802823650003702851710003402888773002602922776003602948776003602984776003603020830005903056856004603115912001403161912001403175999001703189978-3-031-50955-1DE-He21320251030112247.0cr nn 008mamaa240601s2024    sz |    s    |||| 0|eng d  a97830315095519978-3-031-50955-17 a10.1007/978-3-031-50955-12doi 4aPN843-849 7aDS2bicssc 7aLIT0000002bisacsh 7aDS2thema1 aRushton, Amy.eauthor.0(orcid)0000-0001-8326-93951https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8326-93954aut4http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/aut97799110aRe-Reading Tragic Africah[electronic resource] :bDevelopment, Neoliberalism and Contemporary Fiction /cby Amy Rushton.  a1st ed. 2024. 1aCham :bSpringer International Publishing :bImprint: Palgrave Macmillan,c2024.  aXI, 195 p.bonline resource.  atextbtxt2rdacontent  acomputerbc2rdamedia  aonline resourcebcr2rdacarrier  atext filebPDF2rda1 aNew Comparisons in World Literature,x2634-61090 a1. Introduction: The Danger of the Single Reading -- 2. Reading Africa in the Neoliberal World-System -- 3. The Longer Walk to Freedom: South African Prophecy and Neoliberal Intervention upon ‘Tragic Africa’ -- 4. ‘Africa awaits its creators’: Subverting Development Narratives -- 5. Back to Utopia: Retrieving the Past to Reclaim the Future -- 6. Conclusion: Towards a Kind of Paradise.  aGrounded in world-systemic analysis, this book revisits the literary and social implications of ‘tragedy’ in relation to global narratives about Africa and within fiction by writers from the continent. It argues that working through the full complexity of ‘tragedy’ helps to identify and challenge plots that depict Africa as reaching a tragic impasse. Instead, reconsidering tragedy allows for further, related interventions including the implications of narratives of development, the argument for formally engaging with literary texts that present challenging material, reformulations of African political and cultural agency, and the possibilities to be found in utopian thinking. It claims that contemporary fiction helps to scrutinise the familiar big picture of Africa and create space for discussions about wider political and historical commonalities between the continent and the rest of the world. As such, the novels discussed in this study are not simply ‘about’ Africa: these fictional narratives position Africa as a central actor within the global history of late capitalism. Amy Rushton is Senior Lecturer in English at Nottingham Trent University, UK. They have over a decade of teaching experience and have published numerous articles on African literature, neoliberalism, and contemporary cultural representations of mental distress. Amy is currently Chair of the Board for the National Survivor User Network (NSUN). 0aLiterature.965108 0aAfrican literature. 0aComparative literature. 0aProse literature.96865414aWorld Literature.96665524aAfrican Literature.24aComparative Literature.24aNarrative Text and Prose.9686552 aSpringerLink (Online service)0 tSpringer Nature eBook08iPrinted edition:z978303150954408iPrinted edition:z978303150956808iPrinted edition:z9783031509575 0aNew Comparisons in World Literature,x2634-610997598640uhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-50955-1  aZDB-2-LCM  aZDB-2-SXL  c60367d60367