Environment at the Margins: Literary and Environmental Studies in Africa

Environment at the Margins brings literary and environmental studies into a robust interdisciplinary dialogue, challenging dominant ideas about nature, conservation, and development in Africa and exploring alternative narratives offered by writers and environmental thinkers. The essays examine how geographers, anthropologists, and historians make use of literature and how they apply theories and ideas drawn from their respective fields in the study of both African and colonial literatures. Contributors analyze the writing of Nadine Gordimer and J. M. Coetzee and the intersections between literary and policy devices in the works of Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Zakes Mda, Mia Couto, Ben Okri, and Wangari Maathai. These postcolonial ecocritical discussions focus on dialogue among disciplines and among different visions of African environments. Through its cross-disciplinary approach, Environment at the Margins moves African ecocriticism beyond the marginalized visions of the imaginary Africa.