In the decade before and after independence, Nigerians not only adopted the novel but reinvented the genre. Nigerian novels imagined the new state, with its ideals of the rule of law, state sovereignty, and a centralized administration.

Debt, Law, Realism argues that Nigerian novels were not written for a Western audience, as often stated, but to teach fellow citizens how to envision the state. The first Nigerian novels were overwhelmingly realist because realism was a way to convey the understanding shared by all subject to the rule of law. Debt was an important theme used to illustrate the social trust needed to live with strangers. But the novelists felt an ambivalence towards the state, which had been imposed by colonial military might. Even as they embraced the ideal of the rule of law, they kept alive a memory of other ways of governing themselves. Many of the first novelists – including Chinua Achebe – were Igbos, a people who had been historically stateless, and for whom justice had been a matter of interpersonal relations, consensus, and reciprocity, rather than a citizen’s subordination to a higher authority.

Debt, Law, Realism reads African novels as political philosophy, offering important lessons about the foundations of social trust, the principle of succession, and the nature of sovereignty, authority, and law.

Neil ten Kortenaar is professor of English and comparative literature at the University of Toronto Scarborough.

Neil ten Kortenaar's profile page

“Debt/Law/Realism is a necessary and timely book that will appeal to scholars of African/Nigerian literature, Nigerian history, and law.” Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des études africaines

“Debt/Law/Realism is an accomplishment that should inform the teaching of African novels.” Journal of Postcolonial Writing

“While attuned to the Nigerian context and how its literature makes demands of and articulates statehood, subjectivity, violence, and the law, this ambitious book demonstrates what we can learn about the state from the African scenario. Readers of Debt, Law, Realism will come away not just with information on how Nigerian writers were imagining the state, but with a recalibration of their understanding of state formation in Europe and elsewhere. An extremely original contribution to African literary criticism and political philosophy more broadly.” Cajetan Iheka, Yale University and author of Naturalizing Africa: Ecological Violence, Agency, and Postcolonial Resistance in African Literature

"Kortenaar uses writings of the renowned Nigerian African writer Chinua Achebe (1930—2013), especially Things Fall Apart (1958), to elucidate the connection between debt, law, and realism in African writing. Highly recommended.” Choice