Elleke Boehmer

Elleke Boehmer (b. 1961) is an academic and writer, born in South Africa.^[1] She is a literary critic who specialises in international writing in English, teaching world literature at Oxford University. She is also a novelist with a reputation as a commentator on experiences of social alienation and split belonging.^[2]

Boehmer is Professor of World Writing in English in the English Faculty at the University of Oxford, and Professorial Governing Body Fellow at Wolfson College. She is the Founding and General Series Editor of the Oxford Studies in Postcolonial Literatures, a series which offers accessible introductions to postcolonial writing.

She is known for her edition of Robert Baden-Powell's book Scouting for Boys. Among her other academic works are Empire, the National and the Postcolonial, Colonial and Postcolonial Literature: Migrant Metaphors and Nelson Mandela (OUP, Very Short Introductions).

Her first novel Screens Against the Sky was shortlisted for the David Higham Prize in 1991. Her third novel, "Bloodlines", was shortlisted for the Sanlam Literary Award in 2001. Her latest novel, "Nile Baby", was published in 2008, followed by a 2010 collection of short stories Sharmilla, and Other Portraits.

Novels and Short Stories

• Screens Against The Sky, Elleke Boehmer, Publ. Bloomsbury (1990)
• An Immaculate Figure, Elleke Boehmer, Publ. Bloomsbury (1993)
• Bloodlines, Elleke Boehmer, Publ. David Philip (1997)
• Nile Baby, Elleke Boehmer, Publ. Ayebia (2008)
• Sharmilla, and Other Portraits, Elleke Boehmer, Publ. Jacana (2010)

Selected academic and critical works

• Colonial and Postcolonial Literature: Migrant Metaphors, Elleke Boehmer, Publ. Oxford University Press (1995)
• Empire Writing: An Anthology of Colonial Literature 1870-1918, Elleke Boehmer, Publ. Oxford University Press (1998)
• Empire, the National and the Postcolonial, 1890-1920: Resistance in Interaction, Elleke Boehmer, Publ. Oxford University Press (2002)
• Scouting for Boys, Robert Baden-Powell, ed. Elleke Boehmer, Publ. Bloomsbury (1990)
• Stories of Women: Gender and Narrative in the Postcolonial Nation, Elleke Boehmer, Publ. Manchester University Press (2005)
• Nelson Mandela: Postcolonial Thinker, Elleke Boehmer, Publ. Oxford University Press (2008)
• J.M. Coetzee in Context and Theory, ed. Elleke Boehmer, R. Eaglestone and K. Iddiols, Publ. Continuum (2009)

References

• Writing Women, Writing Place: Contemporary Australian and South African Fiction, Sue Kossew, Publ. Routledge (2006)
• Remembering the Nation, Dismembering Women, Meg Samuelson, Publ. University of KwaZulu-Natal Press (2007)

Notes

1. ^ http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/b/elleke-boehmer/
2. ^ See Jenny Taylor review of Screens Against The Sky, Guardian, May 1993.