We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
To save content items to your account,
please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies.
If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account.
Find out more about saving content to .
To save content items to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org
is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings
on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part
of your Kindle email address below.
Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations.
‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi.
‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Working out of previous studies on postcolonial iterations of the Bildungsroman, as well as the seminal work of Moretti and Redfield on Bildungsroman theory, this chapter asserts the subversive potential of the Bildungsroman for anti-colonial critique, and how postcolonial interpretations of the genre have helped to lay bare its longstanding colonialist underpinnings. The African Bildungsroman, which represents an ideologically distinct articulation of the genre, reflects an active syncretic literary-cultural aesthetic that acknowledges the deep and diverse epistemological and ontological traditions of pre- and postcolonial societies, and is further characterized by its dialogic engagement with pre-colonial, colonial, and postcolonial history. Notable variants of the African Bildungsroman, including the school novel, the child soldier narrative, and the AIDS narrative, demonstrate how effective the genre has been for African writers to explore individuals, nations and traditions in crisis and transition, while working against the frustratingly resilient Western narrative of a dark continent. The African articulation of the Bildungsroman represents a vital contribution to the reconfiguring of the genre, as well as an active literary tradition in its own right. Its presence reminds us that genre can be malleable without losing meaning, and that genre, out of socio-historical necessity, is regularly reborn.
Recommend this
Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this to your organisation's collection.