ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book represents a variety of critical positions and constitutes a re-examination of some of the central issues in the analysis of the production, distribution or mediation and reception of African writing. It attempts a problematisation of the concept of African literary history. The book aims to delineate the historical development of the literature of each of the major regions of the continent. It discusses the degree to which the historical frames, within which the respective literatures evolved, vary in both content and form as well as in terms of the specific character and intensity of the determining cultural and political forces. The book examines the relationship between fiction and history in South Africa, exploring the ways in which history is plotted and structured as an expression of a particular relation between time and ideology.
