ABSTRACT

Nigerian epistolary pamphlets in the 1960s contained large quantities of reprinted material from globally circulating publications dating back to the early nineteenth century. Anachronistic English templates were offered to readers as models for copying in their own correspondence. This article argues that even when local authors copied English sources verbatim, they manifested anything but a passive duplication of metropolitan texts. Their relationship to anglophone materials was more complicated than allowed for by the category of plagiarism. A neglected trajectory of world literature can be opened up by the study of repetition and copying. In postcolonial contexts where emerging social classes sought empowerment through the production of writing in English, the layering and juxtaposition of diverse source materials in epistolary pamphlets presents a challenge to the linear, evolutionary timelines through which national literary-development and literary success or failure are often judged by scholars.

摘要

1960 年代的尼日利亚书信小册子包含大量可追溯到 19 世纪初的全球流通出版物的重印材料。向读者提供了不合时宜的英语模板，作为在他们自己的信件中复制的模型。这篇文章认为，即使当地作者逐字复制了英文资料，他们也表现出除了被动复制大都市文本之外的任何内容。他们与英语材料的关系比剽窃类别所允许的要复杂得多。通过研究重复和复制，可以开辟一条被忽视的世界文学轨迹。在后殖民时代，新兴社会阶层通过英语写作寻求赋权，