Naturalizing Africa - Ecological Violence, Agency, and Postcolonial Resistance in African Literature

Sep 26, 2026

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Naturalizing Africa examines how African literary texts engage urgent ecological problems across the continent, including oil pollution in Nigeria’s Niger Delta, ecologies of war in Somalia, and animal abuses. Cajetan Iheka analyzes narratives by writers such as Amos Tutuola, Wangari Maathai, J. M. Coetzee, Bessie Head, and Ben Okri to challenge anthropocentric approaches. The book revises ideas of agency and emphasizes “proximity” between humans and nonhuman beings, linking exploitation and environmental despoliation to calls for responsibility, sustainability, and climate-change accountability.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages224

Reading Time5 h 45 min

AccessFree to download

Naturalizing Africa

Environmental degradation and literary engagement

Non-human agency and “proximity”

Ecological crises across African regions

Revision of agency and postcolonial resistance

Author background

“Naturalizing Africa is an essential addition to environmental studies in Africa. Iheka has an impressive command of the interface between human communities and non-human ecologies and the way literature can illuminate some of the most vital environmental challenges of our time.” Rob Nixon, Currie C. and Thomas A. Barron Family Professor in the Humanities and the Environment, Princeton University “Through its focus on non-human agency and what Cajetan Iheka calls‘the proximity’ of human and non-human actors, Naturalizing Africa offers an innovative approach to the role African literary studies can play in addressing environmental degradation and injustice in Africa. It represents an insightful and signiﬁcant contribution to literary, postcolonial, and environmental studies.” Byron Santangelo, Professor of English, University of Kansas “Cajetan Iheka delivers a beautifully researched referendum on the Eurocentric limitations of both Enlightenment and postcolonial thought, seeking to relocate African ecocriticism and environmental activism in a primarily indigenous African understanding of the relations of humans with non-humans. His delineation of an ‘aesthetics of proximity’ as a means of representing multispecies relationships adds yet another dimension to the most progressive scholarship in animal studies, ecocriticism, and the new materialism.” Stephanie LeMenager, Moore Endowed Professor, Department of English, University of Oregon “Brilliantly countering the anthropocentrism of much ecocritical scholarship on African literatures, Cajetan Iheka’s Naturalizing Africa offers important new interventions into African, postcolonial, and environmental studies. Through its skillful, expert analyses of literary representations of ecological crises from across the African continent, this book also contributes signiﬁcantly to envisioning alternative, sustainable ecosystems.” Karen L. Thornber, Professor of Comparative Literature, Harvard University “Cajetan Iheka’s Naturalizing Africa is an eloquent, theoretically sophisticated contribution to the growing body of ecocritical work engaged with the Global South. This book vividly illuminates the cultural causes of and responses to Africa’s environmental crises, using carefully chosen examples from various sub-Saharan regions.” Scott Slovic, Professor of English, University of Idaho and coeditor of Ecocritical Aesthetics: Language, Beauty, and the Environment and Ecocriticism of the Global South “Iheka’s Naturalizing Africa is a book that is uncanny in its prescience. Synthesizing a range of debates in environmental, animal, and African literary studies, it not only elaborates the grounds of current debates in these ﬁelds but also illuminates a pathway for what is to come. This is going to be of tremendous inﬂuence for a very long time.” Ato Quayson, Professor and Director of the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies, University of Toronto Naturalizing Africa The problem of environmental degradation on the African continent is a severe one . In this book, Cajetan Iheka analyzes how African literary texts have engaged with pressing ecological problems in Africa, including the Niger Delta oil pollution in Nigeria, ecologies of war in Somalia, and animal abuses across the continent. Analyzing narratives by important African writers such as Amos Tutuola, Wangari Maathai, J. M. Coetzee, Bessie Head, and Ben Okri, Iheka challenges the tendency to focus primarily on humans in the conceptualization of environmental problems and instead focuses on how African literature demonstrates the interconnection and “proximity”of human and nonhuman beings. Iheka proposes a revision of the idea of agency based on human intentionality in African literary criticism and postcolonial studies. He argues that the narratives yoke the exploitation of Africans to the despoliation of the environment and recommend responsibility toward human and nonhuman beings as crucial for ecolog

FAQs

What ecological problems does the book focus on?

It addresses environmental degradation through cases such as Niger Delta oil pollution in Nigeria, ecologies of war in Somalia, and animal abuses across Africa.

How does Cajetan Iheka frame the relationship between humans and nonhuman beings?

He emphasizes non-human agency and the “proximity” of human and non-human actors, arguing for an interconnected view of beings in ecological contexts.

Which kinds of African literary works and authors are discussed?

The analysis draws on narratives by prominent African writers including Amos Tutuola, Wangari Maathai, J. M. Coetzee, Bessie Head, and Ben Okri.

Sep 26, 2026

Uploaded by Blitz