Literature of the African World is a critical examination of exciting literary voices from Africa, the Caribbean and North America. Authors, such as Wole Soyinka, Ngui wa Thiong'o, Buchi Emecheta, Derek Walcott, Leopold Senghor, Michelle Cliff, Louise Bennett, Toni Morrison, Octavia Butler, Alice Walker, Gloria Naylor, Reginald McKnight, and August Wilson, give the course its unique flavor. The readings in short fiction, prose, poetry, and drama which explore thematic concerns such as tradition vs. modernity, colonialism, rites of passage, and oral narrative traditions, enable students to gain an indispensable diasporic perspective that will enlarge their view of themselves, their world and literature.