World Literature and the Nigerian Novel: Canon Formation, Translation, and the Geopolitics of Literary Recognition

This dissertation examines the position and dynamics of the Nigerian novel within the global system of world literature, developing an original analysis of the geopolitical forces that shape which Nigerian authors achieve international canonical status, how translation patterns reproduce and challenge existing hierarchies, and what institutional mechanisms mediate between local literary production and global recognition. World literature theory has developed sophisticated accounts of the unequal global literary field, but Nigerian literature's specific trajectory, its early high-profile emergence through Achebe and Soyinka, its subsequent commercial breakthrough through Adichie, and the complex positioning of younger Nigerian writers, offers a particularly illuminating case for testing and extending these theoretical accounts. The dissertation develops an original research design combining quantitative mapping of Nigerian novel translations into major world languages between 1960 and 2023 using the Index Translationum database, institutional analysis of the literary prize landscape and its relationship to Nigerian author recognition, qualitative interviews with 20 Nigerian authors and 15 literary agents, publishers, and festival organisers in Nigeria, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and close readings of the paratextual materials through which Nigerian novels are marketed and positioned for international audiences. Original theoretical contributions include a model of Nigerian literary geopolitics as a dual peripherality, a theory of how gender and diaspora status interact with literary marketability in international consecration, and an account of how digital platforms are beginning to disrupt traditional translation and consecration circuits. Keywords: world literature, Nigerian novel, canon formation, translation, literary recognition.