Musisi, Nakanyike B. “A Personal Journey into Custom, Identity, Power, and Politics: Researching and Writing the Life and Times of Buganda's Queen Mother Irene Drusilla Namaganda (1896–1957).” History in Africa 23 (1996): 369–85. doi:10.2307/3171949.

The popularity of African novels lies in their ability to convey to the reader how a society might have functioned with or without a state. Since most often a novelist tries to recreate a historical moment, a novel becomes a pedagogical tool of what Klein has called a “reasonable representation of what society may have been like.” In the most popularly utilized novels, an individual is cast at the center of the unfolding story. Most often, the African novel concerns itself with the impact of colonialism and the transition from traditional to contemporary African realities. This is frequently done with the aim of conveying to the reader the processes of adjustment and the pros and cons of this adjustment.

Source: Extract from article.