The re-issue of archival volumes ALT 1 to ALT 14 makes the complete series available and provides the historical perspective of these early contributions to the literature and its criticism.

This volume, first published in 1984, studies the attraction of Africa for non-African writers and the widespread and differing outside influences on African writers. This relationship raises complex problems such as which language to write in, and the representation or misrepresentation of the continent. Kole Omotoso gives a trans-Saharan view of Africa, Funso Aiyejina a West Indian perspective highlighting the work of George Lamming and Denis Williams, and Katherine Frank examines the relevance of feminist criticism to the African novel. Other contributors compare and contrast the works of European, American, Caribbean and African writers: Graham Greene and Dadié; Soyinka and Beckett; Laye, Lamming and Wright; Camus and Césaire; Yeats and J.P. Clark; Equiano and Defoe; Ernest Gaines and Oyono.

Associate editor: Eustace Palmer
Contributions by: Eldred Jones