Research Guides: African Diaspora & African Literatures: Home

NOTES

WorldCat

The Novel in Africa

African Literature on the Internet

African Diaspora on the Internet

Reference: Bibliographies, Encyclopedias, & Handbooks

African drama and performance. Ed. by John Conteh-Morgan and Tejumola Olaniyan. Bloomington : Indiana University Press, c2004.
See also at Columbia: E-book
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African American authors, 1745-1945: bio-bibliographical critical sourcebook. Ed. by Emmanuel S. Nelson. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2000.
See also at Columbia: E-book
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African American autobiographers: a sourcebook. Ed. by Emmanuel S. Nelson. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002
See also at Columbia: E-book
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African American dramatists: an A-to-Z guide. Ed. by Emmanuel S. Nelson. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2004.
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African American literature : an encyclopedia for students. Ed. by Hans A. Ostrom and J. David Macey. Santa Barbara, California : Greenwood, an imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC, [2020]
--See also at Columbia: E-book
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African American literature in transition, 1750-1990, vols. 1-13. Print and E-book versions at Columbia. Series editors, Joycelyn Moody and Cassander Smith. Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2021--
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African American national biography. 12 vols. Editors in chief, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, c2013.
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--See also: Oxford African American studies center

African American women playwrights: a research guide. Ed. by Christy Gavin. New York: Garland Pub., 1999.
See also at Columbia: E-book
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African American women writers in the 19th century. New York: The Digital Schomburg, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library, 1999.

African writers. 2 vols. Ed. by C. Brian Cox. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, c1997.
See also at Columbia: E-book
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Africana: the encyclopedia of the African and African-American experience. 5 vols. Ed. by Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Oxford, UK; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
See also at Columbia: Oxford African American studies center
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Afro-American women writers, 1746-1933: an anthology and critical guide. Ed. by Ann Allen Shockley. Boston, Mass.: G.K. Hall, c1988.
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Black literature and literary theory. Ed. by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. ; [contributors, Sunday O. Anozie ... et al.]. New York : Routledge, 1990.
See also: 1984 ed.
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Black women in America. 2nd ed. 3 vols. Editor in chief, Darlene Clark Hine. New York : Oxford University Press, 2005.
See also at Columbia: Oxford Reference
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Black women of the Harlem Renaissance era. Ed. by Lean'tin L. Bracks and Jessie Carney Smith. Lanham : Rowan & Littlefield, [2014]
--See also at Columbia: E-book
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The Bloomsbury handbook to Edwidge Danticat. Ed. by Jana Evans Braziel and Nadège T. Clitandre. London ; New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2021.
See also at Columbia: E-book
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The Bloomsbury handbook to Octavia E. Butler. E-book. Ed. by Gregory J. Hampton and Kendra R. Parker. London ; New York, NY : Bloomsbury Academic, 2020.
WorldCat (print)

The Bloomsbury handbook to Toni Morrison. E-book. Ed. by Kelly L. Reames and Linda Wagner-Martin. London ; New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2023.
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The Cambridge companion to the African American novel. Ed. by Maryemma Graham.
Cambridge; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2004.
See also at Columbia: Cambridge Companions Complete
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The Cambridge companion to African American theatre. Ed. by Harvey Young. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2013.
See also at Columbia: Cambridge Companions Complete
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The Cambridge companion to African American women's literature. Ed. by Angelyn Mitchell and Danille K. Taylor. Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2009.
See also at Columbia: Cambridge Companions Complete
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The Cambridge companion to contemporary African American literature. Ed. by Yogita Goyal. Cambridge ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2024.
See also at Columbia: Cambridge Companions Online
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The Cambridge companion to the African novel. Ed. by F. Abiola Irele. Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2009.
See also at Columbia: Cambridge Companions Complete
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The Cambridge companion to the Harlem Renaissance. Ed. by George Hutchinson. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
See also at Columbia: Cambridge Companions Complete
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The Cambridge companion to James Baldwin. Ed. by Michele Elam. New York, NY, USA : Cambridge University Press, 2015.
See also at Columbia: Cambridge Companions Complete
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The Cambridge companion to Ralph Ellison. Ed. by Ross Posnock. Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2005.
See also at Columbia: E-book
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The Cambridge companion to slavery in American literature. Ed. by Ezra Tawil. New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2016.
See also at Columbia: Cambridge Companions Complete
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The Cambridge guide to African and Caribbean theatre. Ed. by Martin Banham, Errol Hill, and George Woodyard. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
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The Cambridge history of African American literature. Compiled by Maryemma Graham and Jerry W. Ward Jr. Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2011.
See also at Columbia: Cambridge Histories (Online)
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The Cambridge history of African and Caribbean literature. Ed. by F. Abiola Irele and Simon Gikandi. 2 vols. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
See also at Columbia: Volume 1 and Volume 2 , Cambridge Histories (Online)
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The Cambridge history of South African literature. Ed. by David Attwell and Derek Attridge. Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2012.
See also at Columbia: Cambridge Histories (Online)
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Caribbean literature in transition. 3 vols. New York : Cambridge University Press, 2021.
[v. 1. 1800-1920, ed. by Evelyn O'Callaghan and Tim Watson ; v. 2. 1920-1970, ed. by Raphael Dalleo and Curdella Forbes; v. 3: 1970-2020, ed. by Ronald Cummings and Alison Donnell.]
See also at Columbia: E-book of v. 1 ; v. 2 ; and, v. 3
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The Columbia Granger's index to African-American poetry. Ed. by Nicholas Frankovich and David Larzelere. New York: Columbia University Press, c1999.
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A companion to African American literature. Ed. by Gene Andrew Jarrett. Chichester, U.K. ; Malden, MA : Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
See also at Columbia: E-book
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A companion to African cinema. Ed. by Kenneth W. Harrow and Carmela Garritano. Hoboken, NJ : Wiley-Blackwell, 2018.
See also at Columbia: E-book
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The companion to African literatures. Ed. by Olakunle George. Hoboken, NJ : Wiley-Blackwell, [2020]
--See also at Columbia: E-book
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A companion to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Ed. by Ernest N. Emenyonu. (Woodbridge, Suffolk : James Currey, an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd, 2017)
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A companion to the Harlem Renaissance. Ed. by Cherene Sherrard-Johnson. Wiley-Blackwell Online Books. Hoboken, NJ : Wiley Blackwell, 2015.
Print copy at Barnard
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Contemporary African American fiction : new critical essays. Ed. by Dana A. Williams. Columbus : The Ohio State University Press, c2009.
See also at Columbia: E-book
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Contemporary African American novelists: a bio-bibliographical critical sourcebook. Ed. by Emmanuel S. Nelson. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999.
See also at Columbia: E-book
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Dickson-Carr, Darryl. The Columbia guide to contemporary African American fiction. New York: Columbia University Press, c2005.
See also at Columbia: E-book
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Dictionary of African biography. 6 vols. Emmanuel K. Akyeampong and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., editors in chief. Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, c2012.
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Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro-Latin American biography. E-book. Ed. by Franklin W. Knight and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. [Oxford] : Oxford University Press, 2016.
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Dictionnaire de la négritude. [Compiled by] Mongo Beti and Odile Tobner. Paris : L'Harmattan, 1989.

Dictionnaire des oeuvres littéraires négro-africaines de langue française des origines à 1978. Sous la direction d'Ambroise Kom. Sherbrooke, Quebec: Naaman, 1983.
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Dictionnaire des oeuvres littéraires de langue française en Afrique au sud du Sahara, v. 2.
[par Ambroise Kom ; de 1979 à 1989.] San Francisco: International Scholars Publications, 1996.
WorldCat (2001 ed.)

Dunton, Chris. Nigerian theatre in English: a critical bibliography. London; New Providence, N.J.: Hans Zell Publishers, 1998.
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Encyclopedia of African-American writing. 4th edition. E-book. Ed. by Laura and James F. Nicosia. Amenia, NY : Grey House Publishing, 2022.
WorldCat -- E-book -and- Print

Encyclopedia of African literature. Ed. by Simon Gikandi. London; New York: Routledge, 2003.
See also at Columbia: E-book
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Encyclopedia of the Black Arts Movement. Ed. by Verner D. Mitchell and Cynthia Davis. Lanham, Maryland : Rowman & Littlefield, [2019]
Print copy at Barnard
See also at Columbia: E-book
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Encyclopedia of Caribbean literature. 2 vols. Ed. by D.H. Figueredo. Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 2006.
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Ervin, Hazel Arnett. The handbook of African American literature. Proquest Literature Online. Gainesville : University Press of Florida, 2004.
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Gikandi, Simon and Evan Mwangi. The Columbia guide to East African literature in English since 1945. New York: Columbia University Press, c2007.
See also at Columbia: E-book
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Goslinga, Marian. Caribbean literature: a bibliography. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1998.
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Gray, John. Black theatre and performance: a pan-African bibliography. New York : Greenwood Press, 1990.
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The Greenwood encyclopedia of African American literature. Ed. by Hans Ostrom and J. David Macey, Jr. 5 vols. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2005.
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"The Harlem Renaissance, 1919-1937," by Paul P. Reuben, Professor of English, Emeritas, California State University, Stanislaus. Chapter 9 from "PAL: Perspectives in American Literature -- A Research and Reference Guide." [2019, revised 2023]

The heritage series of Black poetry, 1962-1975: a research compendium. Ed. by Lauri Ramey in consultation with Paul Breman. Aldershot, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, c2008.
See also at Columbia: E-book
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Hill, Errol and James V. Hatch. A history of African American theatre. New York: Cambridge University Press, c2003.
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A history of Haitian literature. Ed. by Marlene L. Daut and Kaiama L. Glover. Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2025.
--See also at Columbia: E-book
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Irele, Abiola. The negritude moment : explorations in francophone African and Caribbean literature and thought. Trenton, N.J. : Africa World Press, c2011.
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Jackson, Richard L. Black writers and the Hispanic canon. New York : Twayne Publishers ; London : Prentice Hall International, c1997.
--See also at Columbia: E-book
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Jordan, Casper LeRoy. A bibliographical guide to African-American women writers. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, c1993.
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Kesteloot, Lilyan. Black writers in French: a literary history of negritude. Translated by Ellen Conroy Kennedy. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1991.
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Kesteloot, Lilyan. Histoire de la littérature négro-africaine. Paris: Karthala, c2001.
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Limb, Peter and Jean-Marie Volet. Bibliography of African literatures. Lanham, M.D.: Scarecrow Press, c1996.
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Lindfors, Bernth. Black African literature in English: a guide to information sources. Detroit: Gale Research Co., c1979.
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Lindfors, Bernth. Black African literature in English, 1977-1981 supplement. New York: Africana Pub. Co., 1986.
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Lindfors, Bernth. Black African literature in English, 1982-1986. London; New York: Hans Zell Publishers, 1989.
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Lindfors, Bernth. Black African literature in English, 1987-1991. London; New Jersey: Hans Zell Publishers, 1995.
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Lindfors, Bernth. Black African literature in English, 1992-1996. Oxford: Hans Zell, 2000.
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Lindfors, Bernth. Black African literature in English, 1997-1999. Oxford: Hans Zell, 2003.
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Moser, Gerald M. and Manuel Ferreira. A new bibliography of the lusophone literatures of Africa = nova bibliografia das literaturas africanas de expressão portuguesa. 2nd completely rev. and exp. ed. London ; New York : H. Zell Publishers, 1993.
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Moudileno, Lydie. Littératures africaines francophones des années 1980 et 1990.
Document de travail; no 2. Dakar, Senegal : Conseil pour le développement de la recherche en sciences sociales en Afrique (CODESRIA), c2003.
See also at Columbia: E-book
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Ngandu Nkashama, Pius. Portraits d'écrivains : visages d'histoire littéraire. Paris : L'Harmattan, [2016]
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The novel in Africa and the Caribbean since 1950. Ed. by Simon Gikandi. New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2016]
See also at Columbia: The Oxford history of the novel in English ; vol. 11.
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Owomoyela, Oyekan. The Columbia guide to West African literature in English since 1945. New York: Columbia University Press, c2008.
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Oxford African American Studies Center. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008-
--Content includes: Africana (5 volumes); Encyclopedia of African American history; Black women in America--2nd edition; and, the African American national biography.

Oxford Bibliographies Online. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
--Available at Columbia
- African Studies (All subjects)
- African American Studies (All subjects)
- Chinua Achebe. By Evan Mwangi.
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. By Lily Mabura.
- African American Writers and Communism. By Alan M. Wald.
- African Oral and Written Traditions. By Harold Scheub.
- James Baldwin. By Magdalena J. Zaborowska.
- Amiri Baraka. By GerShun Avilez.
- The Black Aesthetic. By Alessandra Raengo.
- Black Women Writers in the United States. By Selamawit D. Terrefe.
- Octavia Butler. By Esther L. Jones.
- Charles W. Chesnutt. By Charles Duncan.
- Nuruddin Farah. By F. Fiona Moolla.
- Francophone Writing. By Frieda Ekotto.
- Henry Louis Gates, Jr. By Kinohi Nishikawa.
- Pauline Hopkins. By Kerri Greenidge.
- James Weldon Johnson. By Noelle Morrissette.
- Literature and the Study of Africa. By Evan Mwangi.
- Literature of the British Caribbean. By Tim Watson.
- Modern African Literature in European Languages. By Evan Mwangi.
- Toni Morrison. By Justine Tally.
- The New Negro. By Cherene Sherrard-Johnson.
- Ngugi wa Thiong'o. By Evan Mwangi.
- Ousmane Sembene. By Amadou Fofana.
- Wole Soyinka. By Alain Ricard.
- Speculative Fiction [African American Studies]. By Esther L. Jones.
- Theater and Performance in the 19th Century [African American Studies]. By Douglas Jones and Amadi Ozier.
- Tricksters in African, African American, and Caribbean Folktales and Cultures. By Babacar M'Baye.
- Urban Fiction [African American Studies]. By Heike Raphael-Hernandez.
- Phyllis Wheatley. By Vincent Caretta.
- Colson Whitehead. By Derek C. Maus.
- Richard Wright. By Yoshinobu Hakutani.

The Oxford companion to African American literature. Ed. by William L. Andrews, Frances Smith Foster, Trudier Harris. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
See also at Columbia: E-book version of A concise Oxford companion to African American literature (2001)
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The Oxford companion to Black British history. Ed. by David Dabydeen, John Gilmore, and Cecily Jones. Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2007.
See also at Columbia: E-book
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Peterson, Bernard L., Jr. Contemporary Black American playwrights and their plays: a biographical directory and dramatic index. New York: Greenwood Press, 1988.
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Pettis, Joyce Owen. African American poets: lives, works, and sources. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002.
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Plastow, Jane. A history of East African theatre. Vol. 1. Horn of Africa ; Vol.2. Central East Africa. (Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan, 2021-)
--See also at Columbia: E-book of Vol. 1 -and- Vol. 2
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The post-colonial literature of Lusophone Africa. Compiled by Patrick Chabal with Moema Parente Augel...[et al]. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press; London: Hurst & Company, 1996.
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Ricard, Alain. The languages & literatures of Africa: the sands of Babel. Translated from the French by Naomi Morgan. Oxford [England]: James Currey; Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2004.
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The Richard Wright encyclopedia. E-book. Ed. by Jerry Washington Ward and Robert Butler. Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 2008.
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Roscoe, Adrian A. The Columbia guide to Central African literature in English since 1945. New York: Columbia University Press, c2008.
See also at Columbia: E-book
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The Routledge companion to African American theatre and performance. E-book. Ed. by Kathy A. Perkins, Sandra L. Richards, Renée Alexander Craft, and Thomas F. DeFrantz. Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2019.
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Routledge handbook of African literature. Ed. by Moradewun Adejunmobi and Carli Coetzee. Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2019.
See also at Columbia: E-book
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Routledge handbook of African theatre and performance. E-book. Ed. by Kene Igweonu. Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2024.
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Routledge handbook of minority discourses in African literature. E-book. Ed. by Tanure Ojaide and Joyce Ashuntantang. London ; New York : Routledge, 2020.
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The Routledge handbook of the new African diasporic literature. Ed. by Lokangaka Losambe and Tanure Ojaide. Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, [2024].
--See also at Columbia: E-book
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Transnational Africana women's fictions. E-book. Ed. by Cheryl Sterling. Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, [2022].
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Twentieth-century Caribbean and Black African writers. First series. Ed. by Reinhard Sander and Bernth Lindfors. Dictionary of literary biography, v. 117. Detroit, Michigan: 1992.
See also at Columbia: Dictionary of literary biography
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Twentieth-century Caribbean and Black African writers. Second series. Ed. by Bernth Lindfors and Reinhard Sander. Dictionary of literary biography, v. 125. Detroit, Michigan: 1993.
See also at Columbia: Dictionary of literary biography
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Twentieth-century Caribbean and Black African writers. Third series. Ed. by Bernth Lindfors and Reinhard Sander. Dictionary of literary biography, v. 157. Detroit, Michigan: c1996.
See also at Columbia: Dictionary of literary biography
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Williams, Dana A. Contemporary African American female playwrights: an annotated bibliography. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998.
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Williams, Emily Allen. Anglophone Caribbean poetry, 1970-2001: an annotated bibliography. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002.
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Women Writing Africa Project. Vols. 1-4: Eastern Region, Northern Region, Southern Region, West Africa and the Sahel. New York : Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2003-2009.
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Writing African women : gender, popular culture, and literature in West Africa. Ed. by Stephanie Newell. London [England] ; Atlantic Highlands, N.J. : Zed Books, 1997.
--See also at Columbia: 2017 edition
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Zora Neale Hurston: an annotated bibliography of works and criticism. Ed. by Cynthia Davis and Verner D. Mitchell. Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2013.
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Library Catalogs

CLIO
(All CU libraries EXCEPT Teachers College)

Educat (Teachers College)

Borrow Direct (Fast interlibrary book loan)

Interlibrary Loan

WorldCat

Indexes

Africa-Wide Information. (Ipswich, MA: EBSCO ; Baltimore, MD: NISC, 1997-)

African Women Bibliographic Database. (AfricaBib.Org, Davis Bullwinkle, U. of Arkansas, Little Rock; African Studies Centre, Leiden University, The Netherlands)

Black Studies Center. (Cambridge, MA: ProQuest Information & Learning)
--Includes essays and historic journals & newspapers.

Book review digest plus: 1982 to present. (H.W. Wilson Co.; via FirstSearch)
--See also: Book review digest retro: 1905-1982

Cairn.info (Liege, France: Cairn, 2006-)
--Index to French language journals and e-books, with full text links.

HAPI online: Hispanic American Periodicals Index. (Los Angeles, Calif.: UCLA Latin American Center)

Humanities full text. (New York: H.W. Wilson, 1995-)

International Bibliography of Book Reviews. (K.G. Saur Verlag, Thomson Corporation, 1985--)

LITAF: Littérature africaine francophone. (France: Université Montesquieu-Bordeaux IV)

MLA International Bibliography. (Online). (New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1963-)

Pascal-Francis Archive: Online Index, 1972-2015. Monthly. (Paris : CNRS, 1972-2015).
Interdisciplinary index, with emphasis on Western European publications.

Proquest Black Studies ([Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest)
Interdisciplinary index, with links to full text; "designed for teaching and researching the history and lives of Black history and culture in the U.S."

Citation Management

The Chicago manual of style. 18th ed. Online. (Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2024)

Columbia University: Citation Management Software (EndNote, Mendeley & Zotero)

Hacker, Diana. The Bedford handbook. 5th ed. Boston : Bedford Books, c1998.
--See also: 6th ed.
Worldcat record

How to Cite Internet Resources
(Columbia University Libraries--African Studies)

MLA handbook for writers of research papers. 9th edition. New York : The Modern Language Association of America, [2021]

Walker, Janice R. and Todd Taylor. Columbia Guide to Online Style. (2006) E-book.
New York: Columbia University Press.
Worldcat record (1998 ed.)

African Studies Librarian

Yuusuf Caruso

Email Me

Contact:

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