The re-issue of archival volumes ALT 1 to ALT 14 makes the complete
series available and provides the historical perspective of these early
contributions to the literature and its criticism.
In his Editorial to African Literature Today 12, first published in
1982, Eldred Jones laments the death of Camara Laye and gives tribute to
him as one of the pioneers of African literature. The volume celebrates
new writers whose works "have not received much critical attention
either because they are relatively new, or because not being what might
be described as mainstream they may unintentionally, perhaps, have been
damned with faint praise or neglect." There are contributions on the
works of Gabriel Okara, Robert Serumaga, Hamidou Kane and John Munonye,
and emerging as significant new voices are playwrights Femi Osofisan and
Ola Rotimi, and feminist writer Mariama Bâ.