Eustace Palmer’s early scholarly contributions

Abstract

This survey of Eustace Palmer's two major contributions to the study of African fiction concentrates on the soundness of his methods and the sensitivity of his insights.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 An exception was Donatus Nwoga’s PhD dissertation on “West African Literature in English,” completed at the University of London in 1965.

2 All page references are to Palmer’s An Introduction to the African Novel (New York: Africana Publishing Corporation, 1972). This is true of all the rest of the essays in this book as well.

3 Adeola James, “Eustace Palmer, An Introduction to the African Novel,” African Literature Today 7 (1975): 148–51.

4 Eustace Palmer, “A Plea for Objectivity: A Reply to Adeola James,” African Literature Today 7 (1975): 125.

5 Eustace Palmer, “The Criticism of the African Novel,” Africana Research Journal 2, no. 4 (1972): 52–69. See also his essay on “The Criticism of African Fiction: Its Nature and Function,” International Fiction Review 1, no. 2 (1974): 114–19.

6 All page references are to Palmer’s The Growth of the African Novel (London: Heinemann, 1979).

7 Irène d’Almeida, “The Making of an African Literary-Critical Tradition,” Ph.D. Emory University, 1987, p. 7. All page references are to this text.

8 Tanimu Abubakar, “A Review of some Critical Opinions on Ngugi’s Works,” Work in Progress 6 (1988): 71–72.

9 Chidi Amuta, Towards a Sociology of African Literature (Oguta, Nigeria: Zim Pan-African Publishers, 1986), 188.

10 Studies on the English Novel, 2^nd ed. (Ibadan: African Universities Press, 1986), x. I have not had access to the first edition, so this quotation is from the introduction to the second edition.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bernth Lindfors

Bernth Lindfors is Professor Emeritus of English and African Literatures at the University of Texas at Austin.