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Edited by Nora Foster Stovel. Edmonton, AB: University of Alberta Press, 2001. 333 pp. $29.95 sc.
Reading Nora Foster Stovel's edition of Long Drums and Cannons: Nigerian Dramatists and Novelists 1952 - 1966, Margaret Laurence's pioneer study of early Nigeria literature, one is transported to the 1960s, that Neverland of nostalgia and myth. For what one encounters here is a self-avowed literary tourist, a sympathetic tourist none-the-less, whose curiosity, aroused by the creative effervescence of young Nigerian writers, led her to seek to understand the literature and to share her insights (p. 1). These insights, developed and presented in six chapters framed by a prefatory literary history, a synopsis of key themes, and an epilogue, offered readers then, and offers readers now, a quick tour of the main writers in lucid prose.
Except for the last chapter, "Other Voices," which lumped together lesser writers like T. M. Aluko and Flora Nwapa, Laurence devoted a chapter to each major writer: Wole Soyinka, John Pepper Clark, Chinua Achebe, Amos Tutuola and Cyprain Ekwensi. The appraisal of each followed a simple pattern: a resume...