Introduction: The Danger of the Single Reading

The opening chapter offers a new framework for reading African literature, arguing that it is possible to open out regional comparative possibilities to rigorously engage with global commonalities. The story of Africa-in-the-world has long been dictated by forces outside of the continent; it is this problematic history of power and representation that has created and sustained a suspicion that literary texts can be as misleading as hysterical news headlines. This chapter intervenes in the ongoing false demand for authenticity from literary texts, arguing that novels dramatise a history that is more interesting and complicated than is suggested by prevalent, stereotyped views of African society and literature. Due to their formal intricacies and ability to imaginatively explore totalising ideas—an approach difficult for non-fiction accounts to justify—novels are ideally able to scrutinise the familiar ‘big picture’ of Africa, register the impact of geopolitical reconfigurations upon individual lives, and create space for discussions of wider geopolitical commonalities.