CFP : Special issue of English Studies in Africa (2013) Critical Perspectives on Abdulrazak Gurnah

This is a Call for Papers for a Special issue of English Studies in Africa (2013) Critical Perspectives on Abdulrazak Gurnah. Guest editors will be Maria Olaussen (Linnaeus University, Sweden) and Tina Steiner (Stellenbosch University, South Africa)

The journal is seeking scholarly articles for a special issue of the ISI listed journal English Studies in Africa dedicated to the literary work and thought of Abdulrazak Gurnah, a major novelist in the English-speaking world today. Gurnah’s work explores issues of migration and cosmopolitanism in complex situations of changing power relations from the old Indian Ocean trading arena to colonial and postcolonial contexts. While some of his eight novels have received a fair amount of critical attention, his earlier novels in particular have not received the extensive scholarly engagements that they deserve. They hope that this collection will manage to fill this gap, to which end articles or essays on the novels that appeared before Paradise are particularly welcome. Contributions are invited that explore any of the following topics/themes/ideas in his fiction.They also invite contributions on topics not mentioned below that help to advance new critical perspectives on Gurnah’s fiction:

1. Littoral societies/Indian Ocean cosmopolitanisms
2. Indian Ocean trade
3. Migration/Translocation/Multilocality
4. Memory
5. Translation and the space between
6. Borderland subjectivities
7. Gender/Sexuality
8. Multicultural and/or multilingual writing
9. Travelling Selves
10. Maps/Mapping
11. Postmodernism/Postcolonialism
12. Politics of Writing/ Cultural politics

Selection procedure and submission timeline
Potential contributors are requested to submit an abstract of 300 words. The editors will select abstracts and commission successful applicants to submit articles for peer review.

15 December 2011: Abstract submission – please submit an abstract of 300 words to the editors:  and 
6 February 2012: Selection of abstracts and commissioning of articles
16 July 2012: Submission of article for peer review
8 October 2012: Notification of acceptance/rejection of article
9 November 2012: Submission of revised article

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