A Survey of African Poetry in the London Times, Sunday Times, Financial Times, the Times Literary Supplement 1865-1985

[Niven reviews Towards the Decolonization of African Literature] "Toward the Decolonization of African Literature is dedicated to thirty-three Third World intellectuals, "expemplary inciters against toleration of our oppressed condition... The main accusation levelled here is that European critics have attempted to annex African literature for themselves. If a book is written in English or French then it is seen as a by-product or subdivision of the Great Tradition, of Modernism, or of some other beautified cultural monolith... They defend African orature against its alleged deficiencies in characterization and range of expression, and witheringly expose the pretensions of European critics who half get the point and so miss it by miles--in, for example, comparing the brevity of many African novels with oral tales... Toward the Decolonization of African Literature is not a pioneer study but it articulates a point of view which is increasingly heard among African critics and which has not previously been marshalled with so much damning quotation. It restores to literary criticism a brio, verging at times on insult, which is rare in Western criticism, where so often genteel irony or theoretical contortions are substituted for plain-spoken assertion of a fully held point of view. Also, the book is fundamentally right..."