Ato Quayson (Pembroke College, University of Cambridge, UK)

Submitted: Wed, 01 Apr 1998 22:42:55 +0100


Dr. Ato Quayson 
Faculty of English
Pembroke College
The Centre for African Studies
University of Cambridge
Cambridge CB2 1RF
United Kingdom

phone:  (44) 1223 338145/334396
fax:    (44) 1223 338163/334396
e-mail: laq10@cam.ac.uk

Wide range of teaching interests including Postcolonial Literature and
Literary Theory, Magical Realism, African-American Literature, Shakespeare
and Classical and Contemporary Tragedy among others. Favour
interdisciplinary work and conceive of teaching and research as an
'interleafing' of literature with social, cultural and politcal concerns. 

Selected Publications:

Strategic Transformations in Nigerian Writing: Rev. Samuel Johnson, Amos
Tutuola, Wole Soyinka and Ben Okri (James Currey and Indiana University
Press, 1997).

"Criticism, Realism and the Disguises of Both: an analysis of Chinua
Achebe's Things Fall Apart  with an evaluation of the criticism relating
to it," in Research in African Literatures 25.4 (1994): 117-136.

"Unthinkable Nigeriana: crisis in the idea of the African
nation-state," in Two African Journeys  by Gabriel Gbadamosi and Ato
Quayson (Cambridge: Prickly Pear Press, 1994) , pp. 7-29.

"Esoteric Webwork as Nervous System: reading the fantastic in Ben Okri"
in Essays on African Writing II, edited by Abdulrazak Gurnah, (London:
Heinemann, 1995), pp. 144-158.

"Contemporary literary theory and the analysis of indigenous cultures:
three examples on the Yoruba," in Research in African Literatures 26.4
(Winter, 1995): 185-196.

"History, Memory and Faction in Wole Soyinka's Ake and Isara," in The
Uses of Autobiography, edited by Julia Swindells (London: Taylor and
Francis, 1995), pp. 81-88.

"Anatomizing a Postcolonial Tragedy: Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogonis," in
On Risk, edited by Claire Macdonald and Ric Allsopp, Performance
Research 1.2 (August, 1996).

"Wole Soyinka and Autobiography as Political Unconscious," in Journal of
Commonwealth Literature 32.2 (1996).

"“Protocols of Representation and the Problems of Constituting an African
Gnosis: Achebe and Okri," in The Yearbook of English Studies, Vol. 27
"The Politics of Postcolonial Criticism"  edited by Andrew Gurr (1997).

"Intermedia: African Theatre and the Question of History," in The World
Encyclopaedia of Contemporary Theatre: Africa, edited by Don Rubin
(UNESCO, 1997).
  
"Ethnographies of African Literature: A Note," in Contemporary African
Fiction, Bayreuth African Studies 42, ed. by Derek Wright, (1997).
 
Among other things Dr Quayson is also Series Editor for _Theatre in
African Cultures_, a new initiative supported by Harwood Academic
Publishers and with an interest in publishing African plays with
accompanying videos of best performances. He is also on the editorial
boards of _Wasafiri_ and _African Literature Today_. He is also founding
co-editor of _Interventions: The International Journal of Postcolonial
Studies_ being brought out by Routledge.