Literary Value and the Prizewinning African Novel

Abstract What are the values implied by the 2021 boom in prizewinning African literature, and what are its implications for literary criticism? This essay considers three prizewinning African novelists—Damon Galgut, Abdulrazak Gurnah, and Tsitsi Dangarembga—and their popular and scholarly receptions to ascertain what is being valued in these authors when they are awarded the Booker, Nobel, and PEN Pinter Prize, respectively. The article compares this evaluative and interpretive state of affairs to an earlier moment in postcolonial studies in an effort to raise the question of what the task of criticism should or could look like today.