Table of Contents

Imagining Africa - Sembene & the problematics of resistance & representation in postcolonial discourse; the teller & the tale - writing alternative histories in "Voltaique" and "Vehi-Ciosane"; filming Africa - the location of an urban African discourse in "Le Mandat"/"Mandabi"; the indiscreet charm of the African bourgeoisie? consumerism, fetishism & socialism in "Xala"; mothers, daughters & prostitutes - the representation of women in Sembene's work; dis-membering empire, re-membering resistance - the memory of colonialism in "Emitai", "Ceddo", and "Camp de Thiaroye"; absence & power - the hollow centre of the neo-colonial order in "Le Dernier de l'empire" and "Guelwaar". Appendix: interview with Sembene.

Reviews

Murphy is industrious: he has amassed a huge bibliography, and he is lucid, balanced, and intelligent in handling his sources. ...Murphy has performed a useful service in drawing together a wide-ranging array of materials, much of which will be unfamiliarto Anglophone readers.
*AFRICAN AFFAIRS*

Any discussion of radical art and politics in francophone Africa in the contemporary period must, by necessity, consider the name of the Senegalese filmmaker and writer Sembene Ousmane. Yet, paradoxically, there has been no book-length study of his work in English, up until now. Fortunately then, David Murphy's lucid and well-researched account of Sembene's career now comes to fill this gap. Indeed, without conceding to the anglophone world (quotations are given in French and then translated in English), Murphy provides wide access to the Senegalese's work, through useful social and political contextualization, by providing illuminating and relevant analyses of both film and written work, and reproducing a recent interview with Sembene.
*FRENCH STUDIES*

Murphy's study is a major and most welcome contribution to the understanding of one of Africa's greatest contemporary artists and one which will be an unavoidable reference point for all future studies of his work.
*AFRICAN LITERATURE TODAY*