First published in 1966 in the Bayreuth African Studies series, this second edition is revised and enlarged with predominantly new topical material. The study is set in the context of universal verities of the conditions of ?Blackness? today, and particularly in the light of current debates among black intellectuals in Africa and the diaspora about cultural ownership, impacted by migration and emigration of writers and critics from the continent. Informed by the works of distinguished African intellectuals and writers, the historicity of the black condition is in the forefront. The introduction is a critical and historical exploration of the ties between Africans in the diaspora and on the continent. The book covers the theoretical and polemical premises of ?Blackness? in post-Negritudian, post-colonial, post-feminister and post-modernist contexts. Rhetorical strategies are examined in the work of Ayi Kwei Armah, Obuntunde Ijimere, Wale Ogunyemi, Jorge Amado, Amiri Barka, Derek Walcott and Wole Soyinka; and the works of Chinua Achebe, Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo and Ken Saro-Wiwa are examined. A full bibliography is included.