As non-African writers have created images of Africa that suit their own needs, African writers have countered these images with African landscapes that emphasize the landmarks and horizons that are significant for Africans. In this volume, Loflin explores the importance of landscape description in African fiction, arguing that discussion of landscape can reveal the geographic, religious, political, and social boundaries of the text. In her analysis, Loflin examines themes of nationalism and ethnic identity, showing how the question of landscape is further complicated when writers in forced or voluntary exile from their native countries reconfigure their relationship to the landscape of Africa.

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Preface Introduction Ngugi wa Thiong'o's Visions of Africa Mother Africa: African Women and the Land in West African Literature The Landscape of Religion in West African Literature by Men "In the Land of a Dying Illusion": The Landscape of Black South African Township Novels Women Writers at Home and in Exile: The Examples of Bessie Head and Miriam Tlali "And Then the Bush Avenged Itself": The Landscape of White South African Fiction Select Bibliography Index