Emerging Trends in Eastern African Literatures and Cultures

This book volume engages the emergent ways and exercises of world-making in eastern African literatures and cultures. It also includes how the world comes to eastern Africa as well as how eastern Africa speaks to the world. Writers within the region have come up with novel commentaries on diverse social issues. Artists and other users have invented new forms of expression through digitalization. The structure and content of this literature and cultural conversations, in line with modernity, has exhibited a fluidity that calls for the critical appraisal carried out in this book.

Therefore, this book volume centralises the emergence of new patterns of engagement in the literatures and cultures of the region. Taking cue from the cultural transformations, technological advancements and political influences, the volume raises questions on politics, conflict and war, and the evolving genres and canon. The book crosses language barriers beyond English and includes critical attention to texts written in the Swahili and French languages. The chapters aim to give a broad overview of the writings and cultural expressions in the eastern African region, including novels, films, short stories, theatre, poetry, oral, and digital performances.







TABLE OF CONTENTS



Introduction: An Overview of Trends in Eastern African Literatures and Cultures

Oduor Obura





Part One: The Evolving Literary Canon



Literary Disruptions of the Ugandan Canon in Selected Ugandan Short Stories

Edgar Nabutanyi



A Discipline under Siege: Interrogating the Place of Literature in English in the Secondary School Curriculum in Tanzania

Obala Musumba



Cartographies of Killing: Transnational Drones in Eye in the Sky

Jana Fedtke



Performing in the Cyber Space: The Online Mchongoano Battles

Kimingichi Wabende



Mobile Phones in the Public Space: Communication as Contextual Cultural Practice in Kenya

James Ogone





Part Two: Conflict, Politics, and War



Narrating Violence in Burundian Genocide and Civil War Literature: Pacifique Irankundäs "Playing at Violence"

Jodi Mikalachki



Violence and the Multivocality of Silence in Roland Rugerös Novels Giuseppe Sofo Conflicts in Memories, History and National Identity in Burundian Literature

Pierre Boizette

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The Aporia in Eastern African War Narratives as Reflected in Uwem Akpan"s "My Parents" Bedroom" and Misago Aloys" La Descente aux enfers

Marie-Thérèse Toyi



Ethiopian Dissident Fiction: Countering Despotism in Hama Tumäs Short Stories

George Otieno Odhiambo



Agony on Stage: The Intrigues of Building Houses in The Rubble Rouser, performed at the 58th Edition of the Kenya Schools and Colleges Drama Festival (KSCDF)

Pepetual Mforbe Chiangong





Part Three: Recent Interventions in Swahili Writing



UWARIDI Initiative: The Innovative Transformation of a Self-help Project by Tanzanian Novelists into a Powerful Literary Space

Uta Reuster-Jahn



Swahili Poetry in the New Millennium: Established and Emerging Trends

Flavia Aiello, Roberto Gaudioso and Emiliano Minerba



Linking the Centuries: The "Big Four" of Kenyan Swahili Writing

Mikhail D. Gromov