Long Drums and Cannons

"Margaret Laurence's Long Drums and Cannons: Nigerian Dramatists and Novelists, 1952-1966 is a fascinating study of African postcolonial writing, written by Laurence after her early years in Africa. Laurence writes that the "most enduring aspect of Nigerian literature...is the insights it gives not only into immediate and local dilemmas, but through these, into the human dilemma as a whole."".

"Her comments on the early writings of well-known Nigerian authors - Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, John Pepper Clark, Amos Tutuola, and Cyprian Ekwensi - also provide insights into her early African writings and her later Canadian works. She also explores the works of then little-known authors, including Flora Nwapa, Nigeria's first woman novelist, Gabriel Okara, T. M. Aluko, Elechi Amadi, Onuora Nzekwu, and Nkem Nwankwo.". "This new edition of Long Drums and Cannons, originally published in 1968 and long out-of-print, also contains Laurence's previously unpublished essay "Tribalism As Us Versus Them," which provides Laurence's own postscript to her book. A Foreword by her colleague, Douglas Killam, a Preface by Christian Riegel, a new Introduction by Nora Foster Stovel, and a commentary on "Nigerian Literature" by Abdul-Rasheed Na'Allah place Laurence's work in a contemporary context. Up-to-date biographies with a list of works for each of the writers, detailed annotations to the original text and a glossary complete this edition."--BOOK JACKET.