Since the mid-1980s, scholarly interest in postcolonial (including Caribbean and African) writing has grown considerably in most literature departments at colleges and universities in the United States and elsewhere. This volume was prepared to meet that rising need. The writers included in DLB Volume 117 hail from Gambia, Ghana, Guyana, St. Lucia, Dominica, Nigeria, and Jamaica. All but one, Olaudah Equiano who wrote in the 18th century, are men and women who began to have their work published in the 20th century.
31 entries include: Chinua Achebe, T.M. Aluko, Ayi Kwei Armah, J.P. Clark, Cyprian Ekwensi, Olaudah Equiano, Alex La Guma, Bessie Head, Jean Rhys and Derek Walcott.