Decolonizing Christianities in Contemporary Nigerian Literature

Africa Talks seminar

In his recently published book Decolonizing Christianities in Contemporary Nigerian Literature (Penn State University Press, 2025), Adriaan van Klinken critically examines a major shift in the African literary engagement with Christianity as a socio-cultural force and explores literary writing as a form of innovative religious thought. In African literature, Christianity has long been represented as a foreign religion, associated with the history and ongoing legacies of European colonialism and mission. But in recent decades, writers have begun to engage with it in more complex, ambivalent, and at times liberatory ways that are reflective of the religion’s tremendous growth and diverse transformations across the continent. In this talk, Van Klinken will discuss this literary shift in the context of Nigeria, a major centre of literary production and Christian growth on the continent, while focusing on some specific chapters of his book.

About the Author

Adriaan van Klinken is Professor of Religion and African Studies at the University of Leeds, and Extraordinary Professor in the Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice, University of the Western Cape (South Africa). His research focuses on Christianity as it intersects wither social, cultural, and political issues, such as relating to gender, sexuality, ecology, and human rights, in contemporary African contexts.

• Zoom link