The twenty-third annual conference of the African Literature Association was a celbration of African cinema, in recognition of of which it received the title, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, FESPACO Nights in Michigan. The selected papers from that conference that appear in this volume constitute a tribute to the creative filmaking that has distinguished African cinema since independence. Some of the subjects treated include the work of North African film-makers Assia Djebar and Nouri Onwurah, and Jean-Pierre Bekolo. Assia Djebar's gracious and moving acceptance speech for the Folon-Nichols award is also included. The extension of cinematic influences to literature is the subject of essays on Sylvain Bemba and Kamau Brathwaite. And finally, two literary studies--one on West African tale-motif of the Beautiful Daughter/Handsome Gentleman, and the figure of the black slave in North African tales--complete the volume.

Maureen N. Eke is an assistant professor of English at Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant.

Kenneth W. Harrow is a professor English at Michigan State University. He has published Threshold at Change in African Literature, and has edited Faces of Islam in African Literature; The Marabout and the Muse: African Cinema: Postcolonial and Feminist Readings, (AWP 1999) and: Women with Open Eyes, a special issue of Matutu on women and African cinema.

Emmanuel Yewah teaches French and comparative literature at Albion College (Michigan).