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ApplyGRADUATE COMPREHENSIVE EXAMINATION READING LIST SELECTED BY THE GRADUATE FACULTY
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THE CANDIDATE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR AT LEAST TWENTY-ONE MAJOR WORKS OR AUTHORS FROM AT LEAST THREE GEOGRAPHICAL REGIONS, DISTRIBUTED AS FOLLOWS:
FICTION
FROM AMONG THE FOLLOWING, SELECT AT LEAST EIGHT NOVELS OR STORY COLLECTIONS FROM AT LEAST THREE DIFFERENT GEOGRAPHICAL REGIONS:
Peter Abrahams. Mine Boy (Southern Africa – South Africa)
Chinua Achebe. Things Fall Apart, A Man of the People or Anthills of the Savannah (West Africa - Nigeria)
Ama Ata Aidoo. Our Sister Killjoy or No Sweetness Here (West Africa – Ghana)
Monica Ali. Brick Lane (Pakistan/England)
Mulk Raj Anand. The Village, Untouchable, or Coolie (India)
Ayi Kwei Armah. The Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born (West Africa – Ghana)
Erna Brodber. Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home (West Indies – Jamaica)
Peter Carey. Any Novel (Australia)
Michelle Cliff. Abeng or No Telephone to Heaven (West Indies – Jamaica)
J.M. Coetzee. Waiting for the Barbarians; Life and Times of Michael K., Age of Iron, or Disgrace (Southern Africa – South Africa)
Merle Collins. Angel or The Colour of Forgetting (Grenada)
Tsitsi Dangarembga. Nervous Conditions (Southern Africa – Zimbabwe)
Edwidge Danticat. Breath Eyes Memory, Krik? Krak! or The Farming of Bones (West Indies – Haiti)
Anita Desai. Clear Light of Day (India)
Alan Duff. Once Were Warriors (New Zealand)
Buchi Emecheta. The Joys of Motherhood (West Africa – Nigeria)
Nuruddin Farah. Maps (East Africa – Somalia)
Sia Figiel. Where We Once Belonged (Western Samoa)
Amitav Ghosh. The Shadow Lines or The Glass Palace (India)
Nadine Gordimer. July’s People or Burger’s Daughter (Southern Africa – South Africa)
Patricia Grace. Potiki (New Zealand)
Jessica Hagedorn. Dogeaters or Dream Jungle (Philippines)
Wilson Harris. Palace of the Peacock (West Indies – Guyana)
Bessie Head. Maru or A Question of Power (Southern Africa – South Africa/Botswana)
Keri Hulme. The Bone People (New Zealand)
Witi Ihimaera. The Matriarch (New Zealand)
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. Heat and Dust (India)
Jamaica Kincaid. Annie John, Lucy, or The Autobiography of My Mother (West Indies – Antigua)
Alex La Guma. A Walk in the Night (Southern Africa – South Africa)
Jhumpa Lahiri. The Interpreter of Maladies or The Namesake (India)
George Lamming. In the Castle of My Skin or The Emigrants (West Indies – Barbados)
Earl Lovelace. The Wine of Astonishment or Dragon Can’t Dance (West Indies – Trinidad)
Roger Mais. The Hills Were Joyful Together (Jamaica)
Katherine Mansfield. Selected Short Stories (New Zealand)
Paule Marshall. Praisesong for the Widow (West Indies – Barbados)
Claude McKay. Home to Harlem or Banana Bottom (West Indies – Jamaica)
Pauline Melville. The Ventriloquist’s Tale (Guyana)
Rohinton Mistry. A Fine Balance, Family Matters, or Such a Long Journey (India)
Bharati Mukherjee. Jasmine or The Holder of the World (India)
V.S. Naipaul. The Mimic Men or A House for Mr. Biswas (West Indies – Trinidad)
R.K. Narayan. The Guide, The Painter of Signs, or Selected Short Stories (India)
Njabulo Ndebele. Fools and Other Stories (Southern Africa – South Africa)
Ngugi wa Thiong’o. Weep Not, Child or The River Between or Matigari (East Africa –Kenya)
Gabriel Okara. The Voice (West Africa – Nigeria)
Ben Okri. The Famished Road (West Africa – Nigeria)
Michael Ondaatje. The English Patient or Anil’s Ghost (Canada)
Raja Rao. Kanthapura (India)
Jean Rhys. Wide Sargasso Sea (West Indies – Dominica)
Arundhati Roy. The God of Small Things (India)
Salman Rushdie. Midnight’s Children, Shame, or The Satanic Verses (India)
Samuel Selvon. A Brighter Sun or The Lonely Londoners (West Indies – Trinidad)
Bapsi Sidhwa. Cracking India or The Crow Eaters (Pakistan)
Khuswant Singh. Train to Pakistan or I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale (India)
Ahdaf Soueif. The Map of Love (Egypt/England)
Amos Tutuola. My Life in the Bush of Ghosts or The Palm-Wine Drinkard (West Africa – Nigeria)
Yvonne Vera. Butterfly Burning (Zimbabwe)
Albert Wendt. Pouliouli or Sons for the Return Home (Western Samoa)
Zoe Wicomb. David’s Story or You Can’t Get Lost in Cape Town (Southern Africa – South Africa)
DRAMA
FROM AMONG THE FOLLOWING, SELECT AT LEAST FIVE PLAYS FROM AT LEAST TWO DIFFERENT GEOGRAPHICAL REGIONS:
Ama Ata Aidoo. Dilemma of a Ghost or Anowa (West Africa – Ghana)
Athol Fugard. Master Harold… and the Boys (Southern Africa – South Africa)
Girish Karnad. Hayavadana (India)
Earl Lovelace. Any Play (West Indies – Trinidad)
David Malouf. Blood Relations (Australia)
Maishe Maponya. Any Play (Southern Africa – South Africa)
Bruce Mason. The Pohutukawa Tree (New Zealand)
Zakes Mda. Any Play (Southern Africa – South Africa)
Percy Mtwa, Mbongeni Ngema, and Barney Simon. Woza Albert! (Southern Africa – South Africa)
Ngugi wa Thiong’o. I Will Marry When I Want (East Africa – Kenya)
Osonye Tess Onwueme. What Mama Said: An Epic Drama (Nigeria)
Femi Osofisan. The Chattering and the Song (West Africa – Nigeria)
Caryl Phillips. Strange Fruit or Where There is Darkness (West Indies – St. Kitts)
Samuel Selvon. Highway in the Sun (West Indies – Trinidad)
Sistren Theatre Collective. Lionheart Gal (Jamaica)
Wole Soyinka. Death and the King’s Horsemen, The Lion and the Jewel, or The Trials of Brother Jero (West Africa – Nigeria)
Derek Walcott. Pantomime, Ti-Jean and His Brothers, or Dream on Monkey Mountain (West Indies – St. Lucia)
POETRY
FROM AMONG THE FOLLOWING, SELECT AT LEAST FIVE POETS FROM AT LEAST TWO DIFFERENT GEOGRAPHICAL REGIONS:
Kofi Anyidoho. Selected Poetry (West Africa – Ghana)
Louise Bennett. Selected Poetry (West Indies – Jamaica)
Okot p’Bitek. Song of Lawino (East Africa – Uganda)
Edward Kamau Brathwaite. The Arrivants Trilogy or Selected Poetry (West Indies – Barbados)
Nirad Chaudhuri. The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian (India)
Merle Collins. Rotten Pomerack (Grenada)
Kamala Das. Selected Poetry (India)
Ingrid de Kok. Selected Poetry (Southern Africa – South Africa)
Amitav Ghosh. Circle of Reason (India)
Lorna Goodison. Selected Poetry (West Indies – Jamaica)
A.D. Hope. Selected Poetry (Australia)
Chenjerai Hove. Selected Poetry ((Southern Africa – Zimbabwe)
Linton Kwesi Johnson. Selected Poetry (West Indies – Jamaica)
Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye. Selected Poetry (East Africa – Kenya)
David Malouf. Selected Poetry (Australia)
Dambudzo Marechara. Selected Poetry (Southern Africa – Zimbabwe)
Una Marson. Selected Poetry (West Indies – Jamaica)
Claude McKay. Selected Poetry (West Indies – Jamaica)
Es’kia Mphahlele. Selected Poetry (Southern Africa – South Africa)
Grace Nichols. I Is a Long Memoried Woman (Guyana)
Christopher Okigbo. Labyrinths (West Africa – Nigeria)
Michael Ondaatje. Selected Poetry (Canada)
M. Nourbese Philip. Selected Poetry, including “Discourse on the Logic of Language” (Canada/Trinidad)
Olive Senior. Gardening in the Tropics (Jamaica/Canada)
Sipho Sepamla. Selected Poetry (Southern Africa – South Africa)
Wally Serote. Selected Poetry (Southern Africa – South Africa)
Vikram Seth. Selected Poetry (India)
Wole Soyinka. Selected Poetry (West Africa – Nigeria)
Derek Walcott. Selected Poetry (West Indies – St. Lucia)
AUTOBIOGRAPHY/NON-FICTION
FROM AMONG THE FOLLOWING, SELECT AT LEAST THREE WORKS FROM AT LEAST TWO DIFFERENT GEOGRAPHICAL REGIONS:
Chinua Achebe. Morning Yet on Creation Day (West Africa – Nigeria)
Dionne Brand. Bread Out of Stone (Trinidad and Tobago)
Kamau Brathwaite. History of the Voice: The Development of Nation Language(Barbados)
Breyten Breytenbach. True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist (Southern Africa – South Africa)
Franz Fanon. Black Skins/White Masks or The Wretched of the Earth (Martinique)
Edouard Glissant. Caribbean Discourse or Poetics of Relation (Martinique)
Wilson Harris. History, Fable and Myth in the Caribbean (West Indies – Guyana)
C.L.R. James. The Black Jacobins (West Indies – Trinidad)
Jamaica Kincaid. A Small Place (U.S./Antigua)
George Lamming. The Pleasures of Exile (West Indies – Barbados)
Esk’ia Mphahlele. Down Second Avenue (Southern Africa – South Africa)
Ngugi wa Thiong’o. Detained or Decolonising the Mind (East Africa – Kenya)
Doris Pilkington. Rabbit Proof Fence (Australia)
Salman Rushdie. Imaginary Homelands (India)
Edward Said. Orientalism, Selected Chapters from Culture and Imperialism
Wole Soyinka. The Man Died or Ake: Years of Childhood (West Africa – Nigeria)
Gayatri Spivak. “Can the Subaltern Speak” (U.S./India)
Derek Walcott. What the Twilight Says (West Indies – St. Lucia)
A candidate may also submit a list of readings to supplement, but not replace, the readings from the lists above. The supplementary list should be submitted for approval with the declaration of intent to take the comprehensive examination form.
Rev. 1 August 2014
