Five African Nobel Laureates
Register for this Spring 2023 course on the new NYU SPS Academy of Lifelong Learning website.
With the award of the 2021 Nobel Prize for Literature to the Tanzanian writer Abdelrazak Gurnah, the Swedish Academy has now honored several writers in English from sub-Saharan Africa. In this course, we will read novels by Gurnah, Doris Lessing, J. M. Coetzee,Wolé Soyinka, and Naguib Mahfouz, examining how the modern African novel has engaged in the resistance to colonial oppression, the problems and ironies of writing the nation, and robust engagement with the aesthetics of contemporary narrative. These novels also explore the personal dimensions of life, the struggle for personal identity, the quest for meaningful relationships, growing up, and growing old. Readings will include: Doris Lessing, The Grass Is Singing
; J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace
; Abdelrazak Gurnah, Gravel Heart
; Wole Soyinka, Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth
; and Naguib Mahfouz, Midaq Alley
. We will read Lessing’s The Grass Is Singing
for the first session. Spring 2023 tuition is $369.
You'll Walk Away with
- Lovers of modern literature and global literary culture
- The curious and creative
Ideal for
- Knowledge of some of the leading African literary figures and their key works
- Greater understanding of the global dynamics of literary culture
NO open sections available for this course at the moment. Please check back next semester.