[Review of] Rene Philombe. Tales from Cameroon

Tales from Cameroon is Richard Bjornson\u27s translation of two collections of allegories, anecdotes, and short stories by the Cameroonian writer Rene Philombe. Originally composed in French over a twenty year period between the late 1950s and the late 1970s, these fifteen works reveal the human greed, jealousy, and blindness to its own destructive behavior which Philombe believes divides Cameroonians among themselves

A Response to Our Own Dogs

In contemporary American Indian songs and stories the Iroquois, Shawnee, and Lakota all voice a rueful hindsight over the hereditary Great Mistake, or the friendship and kindness which their naive, trusting ancestors extended to the pilgrims on the Mayflower

[Review of] Langston Hughes. The Big Sea: An Autobiography

In the last ten years a number of critical studies on the Harlem Renaissance have been published, and these in turn have sparked a revival of interest in the cultural, political, and social activities that took place during the ten-year period in Afroamerican history between 1919 and 1929. There is a renewed interest in the life and writings of Renaissance figures such as Arna Bontemps, Countee Cullen, Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larson, Claude McKay, and Langston Hughes. Hence many of their autobiographies, first published in the 1930s and 1940s, are being reissued in response to the demand for more information on the era when the Negro was in vogue. This latest edition of Hughes\u27s first autobiography The Big Sea is part of this larger revival and follows very closely behind the reprint of his contemporary Zora Neale Hurston\u27s Dust Tracks on a Road (University of Illinois Press, 1986)

Depictions of Elderly Blacks in American Literature

Portraits of elderly Afroamerican men and women abound in American literature and vary from stories which present a mythic primordial character who symbolizes emotional stability, experiential wisdom and a community\u27s cultural and historical heritage, to works in slice-of-life realistic style which dramatize the social and psychological conditions of aged blacks. Included in this second category are works which show the confrontation between old and new social standards. Coupled with this range of portraits is a variety of attitudes toward elderly blacks

[Review of] Ken Goodwin. Understanding African Poetry: A Study of Ten Poets

Understanding African Poetry is a valuable asset to anyone interested in African anglophone poetry. Goodwin offers textual analysis, evaluation, and supplementary contextual information on each of the ten poets he chose to discuss. Much of the analysis shows a keen insight and the contextual commentary is quite informative. However, Goodwin\u27s evaluation reflects his bias towards British and white American concepts of what constitutes good poetry