{"id":46626,"date":"2016-04-18T00:04:19","date_gmt":"2016-04-18T00:04:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=46626"},"modified":"2017-02-19T21:33:11","modified_gmt":"2017-02-19T21:33:11","slug":"blackass-a-race-rewrite-of-kafkas-metamorphosis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=46626","title":{"rendered":"Blackass: a race rewrite of Kafka&#8217;s Metamorphosis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/books\/2016\/apr\/13\/blackass-a-race-rewrite-of-kafkas-metamorphosis\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Blackass<\/strong><em><strong>: a race rewrite of Kafka&#8217;s <\/strong><\/em><strong>Metamorphosis<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\" target=\"_blank\">The Guardian<\/a><br \/>\n2016-04-13<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/brittlepaper\" target=\"_blank\">Ainehi Edoro<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Ainehi Edoro reflects on <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=46471\" target=\"_blank\">Blackass<\/a><em>, a novel that subjects <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Metamorphosis\" target=\"_blank\">Kafka\u2019s classic<\/a> to African literary conventions \u2013 and, in the process, gives an iconic European story \u2018an extreme but necessary makeover\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Last year, I received a review copy of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/A._Igoni_Barrett\" target=\"_blank\">A Igoni Barrett\u2019s<\/a> <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=46471\" target=\"_blank\">Blackass<\/a><\/em> from his Nigerian publisher. I knew it was a rewrite of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Franz_Kafka\" target=\"_blank\">Kafka\u2019s<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Metamorphosis\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Metamorphosis<\/em><\/a>. I just didn\u2019t know what to expect. To be quite frank, I was a bit worried. Kafka has not always lived a happy life in Africa. When Guinean novelist <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Camara_Laye\" target=\"_blank\">Camara Laye<\/a> wrote a Kafka-inspired novel, he was dragged through a gauntlet of scandals. Kind commentators called his work derivative and unoriginal. Others were less kind. They accused him of borderline plagiarism. Some even went as far as suggesting that he couldn\u2019t have written the novel without the help of a ghostwriter of some kind. But <em>Blackass<\/em>, it turns out, is different. Barrett essentially subjects Kafka\u2019s classic to the pressures African literary conventions, and, in the process, gives an iconic European story an extreme, but much needed makeover&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire review <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/books\/2016\/apr\/13\/blackass-a-race-rewrite-of-kafkas-metamorphosis\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Blackass: a race rewrite of Kafka&#8217;s Metamorphosis The Guardian 2016-04-13 Ainehi Edoro Ainehi Edoro reflects on Blackass, a novel that subjects Kafka\u2019s classic to African literary conventions \u2013 and, in the process, gives an iconic European story \u2018an extreme but necessary makeover\u2019 Last year, I received a review copy of A Igoni Barrett\u2019s Blackass from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1295,12,5,8,6462],"tags":[23427,23428,23561,22336,2103],"class_list":["post-46626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-articles","category-book-reviews","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","tag-a-igoni-barrett","tag-adrian-igonibo-barrett","tag-ainehi-edoro","tag-franz-kafka","tag-the-guardian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46626"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51623,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46626\/revisions\/51623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}