A Guide Book to H R ole Kulet's Blossoms of the Savannah Series

Modern Literature has diversified into comparative literature and African Literature has become quite important in this field. This is because it not only tries to rewrite a lot about Africa which was biased according to Eurocentric writers but also because it incorporates a lot of issues uniquely African. These may have to do with the traditional African Societies as well as the evolution of new so-called modern African societies, more oriented to the west or Christianized living. African writers have taken differing poles as far as this is concerned. H R ole Kulet becomes important here because he is one of those modernized African writers with quite some lore to his name. Any critic of African or Comparative literature will therefore find him an interesting, sometimes an enlightening read. Blossoms of the Savannah is a novel that examines African traditions is so far as some need to be done away with while others need to be retained. This criticism book examines the PLOT ANALYSIS and the CHARACTERS of Blossoms of the Savannah to give insight to the connectedness of the story as well as the crafting of the characters, their logic and role and how these two issues help demonstrate the coming of age for the African novel and the nature of modern African writers - those who have not been sung the way Ngugi and Achebe have,

Modern Literature has diversified into comparative literature and African Literature has become quite important in this field. This is because it not only tries to rewrite a lot about Africa which was biased according to Eurocentric writers but also because it incorporates a lot of issues uniquely African. These may have to do with the traditional African Societies as well as the evolution of new so-called modern African societies, more oriented to the west or Christianized living. African writers have taken differing poles as far as this is concerned. H R ole Kulet becomes important here because he is one of those modernized African writers with quite some lore to his name. Any critic of African or Comparative literature will therefore find him an interesting, sometimes an enlightening read. Blossoms of the Savannah is a novel that examines African traditions is so far as some need to be done away with while others need to be retained. This criticism book examines THEMES and ELEMENTS OF STYLE in this novel, following the FIRST BOOKLET which examined the PLOT ANALYSIS and the CHARACTERS of Blossoms of the Savannah. It aims to give insight to the concerns or THEMES of the novel and the STYLE - HOW THE NOVEL IS CRAFTED; how these two issues help demonstrate the coming of age for the African novel and the nature of modern African writers - those who have not been sung the way Ngugi and Achebe have,

This book is intended to assist those students and teachers of the African novel who have a problem with question interpretation or in telling exactly how to arrive at a 10/10 mark. The book takes the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education's English papers 101/2 and 101/3 as its base. In these two papers, the student is supposed to answer an excerpt question - where an excerpt is taken from the studied novel and questions are set on it to test the candidates proficiency in a detailed study of a set text - and a set of three essay questions each marked out of 20 which test the student's comprehension of the elements of literature - plot, theme, character and style. However, this is just a base. The skills taught here are applicable worldwide and the candidate only need to examine the time allocated and the marks given for questions in his or her particular paper and then adjust as required. This book gives a detailed study of dealing with essay questions, beginning with what question words require, moving on  to examining details of the excerpt and seeing it from an examiner's point of view, then moves on to essay writing. Essay writing in particular is addressed thoroughly starting with planning, then to paragraphing to the complete essay. This will help the student not only to answer questions as expected but also to deal with works of other critics intelligibly. Finally, the book gives a catalogue of literary terms drawing examples from H R ole Kulet's Blossoms of the Savannah in order to explain what certain literary terms mean. This is crucial in understanding literary criticism. It is recommended that the reader also looks at the other two booklets in this series - the first examines the plot and characters of the novel while the second examines the themes and the elements of style. A complete guide that combines the three booklets is also available.

The study of the Afican novel is often challenging to both the teacher and the student in high schools and colleges. This is because, apart from many modern African novels being multi-faceted, many teachers and students still use the traditional methods of analysis. Often, such methods leave the reader with a lot of knowledge about the particular text, but with few literary skills that can be used on other literary texts or even other genres. This guide book approaches this subject a little differently. First, It uses a series of questions which help the reader to do a personal analysis of the text, rather than give a corpus of facts about the novel like many traditional guides do. These questions are arranged such that the reader is able to move from the facts or the events and incidents narrated in the novel, gradually to the elements of literature - plot, themes, characters and elements of style - which is what any examiner, and other critics, deal with. Even so, the book presents these traditional facts later but now, the reader can easily see where they are drawn from. That way, the reader, especially the new student of literature in general and the critic of the African novel in particular, can build skills which help appreciate the novel and literature in general. This is important because, such skills, once acquired, can easily be used on other novels, African or otherwise, even in other genres of literature. The notes given later therefore form a basis for discussion between the reader and the critic, a discussion in which the reader has already been sharpened enough to either agree or disagree with what is said. That, I believe, is the point of studying literature. Also, the book provides a step by step interpretation, planning and execution of both excerpt and essay questions - a daunting task for the modern high school and college student. This will help the student do what examiners expect and apply these skills to any other genres of literature they come across.