Overview

This book addresses the pressing issues of environmentalism and its representations in African literature. It emphasizes how African writers articulate the consequences of ecological degradation while engaging with decolonial thought that underscores the epistemic importance of the enslaved and colonized quest for humanity and challenges Western narratives' exclusivity. The chapters in this volume underscore the necessity to preserve the ecosystem of the oppressed, an ecology upholding connection with Indigenous people shaped by modernity's constraints. They validate perspectives of colonized, marginalized individuals, linking to geopolitical histories of anticolonialism and environmentalism. The focus refutes colonial-capitalist ecological notions while integrating local and indigenous ecosystem models, advocating communal living. This book assesses how literary interventions in Africa align with ethical reorientation and ecological reimagining beyond colonial modernity and capitalism, advancing hope in the Anthropocene. The work transcends academic collaboration by cultivating soil and sowing seeds to co-create foundations for collective thinking and action towards a just, decolonial future, establishing mutual respect and equality, enabling integration of ecological, social, and economic dimensions of sustainable development. This interdisciplinary volume sits at the intersection of environmental humanities, postcolonial studies, African literature, and decolonial theory and will be valuable to scholars and students in fields including literary criticism, environmental studies, cultural studies, Indigenous knowledge systems, and sustainable development. The book will particularly appeal to researchers focused on Global South perspectives, decolonial methodologies, and ecological justice movements The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Scrutiny2: Issues in English Studies in Southern Africa.

Full Product Details

Author:   Goutam Karmakar (Durban University of Technology, South Africa) ,  Deirdre C. Byrne
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge
Weight:   0.520kg
ISBN:  

9781041223238

ISBN 10:   1041223234
Pages:   182
Publication Date:   22 January 2026
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
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Table of Contents

Introduction: Ecology, Decoloniality, and African Literature 1. Ecology and Decoloniality: Reading the Natural World in Twentieth-Century African Literature 2. Unfathomable Depths: “Deep Into Sacred Terrain” in Sir Ben Okri’s “The Secret Source” from Tiger Work (2023) 3. Re-enchanted Bodies of Water: Towards a Decolonial Tidalectics in Recent African Fiction and Performance 4. An Eco-Decolonial Narrative: Toward a Dividual Self and Slow Wit(h)nessing in Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor’s The Dragonfly Sea 5. The Weeping Earth: Entangled Humanism, Precarity, and Imaginaries in African Eco-Poetry 6. Voices From the Fringes: The Eco-Poetics of Niger Delta Women 7. On the Politics of Making Life in the Ruins of Empire: Helon Habila’s Oil on Water and Chigozie Obioma’s An Orchestra of Minorities 8. Rekindling Eco-Ubuntu in Sicelo Mbatha’s Black Lion: Alive in the Wilderness 9. “Knowledge Born in the Struggle”: Activism, Decolonial Ecology, and Sustainability in Wangari Maathai’s Unbowed: A Memoir

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Author Information

Goutam Karmakar teaches at the Department of English, University of Hyderabad in India, with affiliations at the University of Cologne, Germany, and Durban University of Technology, South Africa. He has received prestigious fellowships including the Alexander von Humboldt and National Research Foundation awards. His research spans Global South literature, postcolonial studies, and environmental humanities. Karmakar edits the journal Global South Literary Studies and the Routledge book series South Asian Literature in Focus. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9119-9486 Deirdre C. Byrne is the Director of ZAPP (the South African Poetry Project), a practising poet, and a Professor of English Studies at the University of South Africa. She has published research on decolonizing poetry in education in South Africa in Education as Change and has published on black and white decolonial feminisms in The International Journal of Women’s Studies. She has published ecofeminist readings of speculative fiction in Extrapolation and a forthcoming article on trees as memory repositories in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings in The Lion and the Unicorn. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4436-6632

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