Anglophone Zambian Prose Fiction: Tradition or Transition?
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Abstract
Zambian literature is characterized by publications both in English and indigenous Zambian languages across all genres. It would be possible to investigate the emerging trends in Zambian literature in general. However, this paper explores and questions, whether an identifiable tradition has developed with regard to Anglophone Zambian prose fiction. Or could it be that Anglophone Zambian prose fiction has not yet developed an identifiable writing tradition and is merely undergoing a transition to some tradition? In seeking answers to these critical questions, the paper highlights trends in Anglophone Zambian prose fiction from the colonial era, which introduced western education and a writing system to Zambia, to the contemporary era. In essence this means tracing publications from the birth of Zambian publishing in 1937, when the quasi-governmental African Literature Committee of Northern Rhodesia was formed. In 1948 the body was transformed into an intergovernmental institution incorporating Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia, now called Malawi and Zambia respectively. Hence the new body was named Joint Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland Publications Bureau. In 1962 the body collapsed and its Northern Rhodesian branch assumed the name Northern Rhodesia Publications Bureau, becoming the Zambia Publications Bureau in 1964, when Zambia became independent. This paper, therefore, will attempt to determine trends in this body of published works in terms of themes, characters, subject, style and types of authors.
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