The Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry Fourth Edition [Paperback]

A new edition of the definitive collection of modern poetry from Africa

Poetry, always foremost of the arts in traditional Africa, writes Gerald Moore, has continued to compete for primacy against the newer forms of prose fiction and theatre drama. Now revised and expanded, this comprehensive anthology features the work of ninety-nine poets from twenty-seven countries; thirty-one of the poets appear here for the first time. War songs, satires, and political protests jostle with poems about love, nature, and the surprises of life, offering a rich and wide-ranging body of creative work.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. Freshness, passion, spontaneity, sensuousness are not common qualities in poetry today . . . but they are to be found in abundance among African poets of the last few decades.
-The Daily Telegraph, London

Africa is producing some of the most original and exciting poetry now being written anywhere in the world.
-Edward BlishenGerald Moorewas born in London in 1924. After serving in the navy during the war, he read English at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Apart from ten years in the School of African and Asian Studies at Sussex, he has taught at universities in various parts of Africa and in Hong King. He has also been a visiting professor at UCLA, the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the University of Ghana, and the University of Ife. His publications includeThe Chosen Tongue: English Writing in the Tropical World, Wole Soyinka, Twelve AfriclÃ*