Dealing with Evils.

In a collection of sixteen essays, Gagiano addresses more than twenty texts from various African regions and periods. The works discussed here range from transcriptions of ancient (Khoikhoi/San) folktales to some of the classic texts of the African English literary canon and include recent writing about urgent contemporary social and gender issues. As the title indicates, Annie Gagiano's focus is on the way these texts engage with the forces that damage and threaten life and quality of life in various African contexts. She pays tribute—by means of carefully argued analyses—to the authors' political courage and social concern and to their subtle delineations of t…