Debt, Law, Realism: Nigerian Writers Imagine the State at Independence

Nigerian novels in the decade before and after independence reinvented the genre, imagining the new state with ideals of the rule of law, state sovereignty, and a centralized administration. They were not written for a Western audience but to teach fellow citizens how to envision the state. Debt was an important theme used to illustrate the social trust needed to live with strangers, but the novelists felt an ambivalence towards the state, which had been imposed by colonial military might. Many of the first novelists were Igbos, a people who had been historically stateless, and for whom justice had been a matter of interpersonal relations, consensus, and reciprocity.

Format: Hardback
Length: 304 pages
Publication date: 10 June 2021
Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press

Nigerians embraced the novel and reinvented the genre in the decade before and after independence, creating a new state with ideals of the rule of law, state sovereignty, and centralized administration. Debt, Law, Realism argues that Nigerian novels were not written for a Western audience but to teach fellow citizens how to envision the state. The first Nigerian novels were overwhelmingly realist, using debt as a theme to illustrate the social trust needed to live with strangers. However, the novelists felt ambivalence towards the state, which had been imposed by colonial military might. They kept alive a memory of other ways of governing themselves, such as the Igbos, who had been historically stateless and for whom justice had been a matter of interpersonal relations, consensus, and reciprocity. Debt, Law, Realism reads African novels as political philosophy, offering important lessons about the foundations of social trust, the principle of succession, and the nature of sovereignty, authority, and law.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780228006282