Transnational African Identities in Contemporary Urban Fiction Community, Hospitality and Friendship

Acknowledgements; Chapter 1: Introduction and Objectives; Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework and Methodology; Chapter 3: J.M. Coetzee's Youth; Chapter 4: Zoë Wicomb's The One That Got Away; Chapter 5: Teju Cole's Open City; Chapter 6: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah; Chapter 7: Conclusions

Biography

Fatma Akçay is a Research Associate in the Department of English at King’s College London. Her research focuses on twentieth-century and twenty-first-century literature. She holds a Doctor of Philosophy degree, two Master of Arts degrees, and two Bachelor of Arts degrees in English Literature and Spanish Literature. She has studied at six universities on eight prestigious academic excellence grants and scholarships: King’s College London; the University of Córdoba; the University of Oxford; the University of Seville; Istanbul University; and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

"Fatma Akçay’s careful case studies of J.M. Coetzee, Zoë Wicomb, Teju Cole and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie follow the novels’ transnational protagonists through the rapidly changing temporalities of the third millennium. While migration and other theory is allowed to illuminate the texts, Akçay at the same time demonstrates in lively ways how the changing world order manifests through the characters’ experiences within the global city. An informed and thoughtful study."

~Elleke Boehmer, Professor of World Literature in English at the University of Oxford,  UK, Author of Ice Shock and Southern Imagining


"She covers a vast amount of ground and deals with some of the most intricate and complex philosophies that have emerged in the last few decades. What is more, she does so with great facility. To discuss thinkers like Agamben, Blanchot, Derrida, Nancy, and Foucault  without resorting to the obfuscatory discourse that is so often deployed by commentators on these thinkers, is rare and admirable, and attests to a refined and nuanced understanding of the ideas under discussion. Throughout, the textual readings are theoretically sophisticated, perceptive, astute, and original. The book as a whole is admirably cohesive."

~Professor Mike Marais, Full Professor at Rhodes University, South Africa


"The author is highly qualified in education and global exposure to write the text. Her knowledge of different thinkers and philosophers is copious. She does a magnificent work."

~Professor Tanure Ojaide, Frank Graham Porter Professor of Africana Studies, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA