Books published by Fourth Dimension Publishing Company

The focus of this study is to examine satirical and critical modes both as objective and creative media. It explores the tradition of satire in African oral and written literature pre-Okri, and analyses how his practice of satire coheres with advances in the existing tradition, or differs from it. The targets of Ben Okri's criticism, his techniques of attack, and other devices are identified and discussed in full. Finally the author presents an opinion as to how far Ben Okri's works have succeeded in making a satirical and critical appraisal of the socio-political climate in Africa generally, particularly in Nigeria.

There can be no better time to revive the major strands of social and political thought about Africa in the nineteeth and twentieth centuries than now; given the consensus of opinion that over the last two decades African societies, and policies relating to the continent have largely failed. This book, illustrates that failures in Africa are not for a lack of ideas and arguments, or intellectual life. At the very least, it is a document of the rich history of ideas about the continent, by some of its most influential thinkers. The collection includes pieces on major African leaders/thinkers - Sekou Toure, Blydeen Awolowo and Nkrumah; and contributions by leaders themselves e.g. Nyerere on the process of liberation, and relative concepts of freedom. The other essays are by major intellectuals on currents and periods in social thought and intellectual history, such as Mazui on questions of (pan) - African indentities, on Africanness and colonialism, and African socialism.