The Rhetoric of Culture in Nollywood explores the representation of grassroots cultures in popular Nigerian film industry, Nollywood. It analyses the aesthetics and political economy of the industry and uses its screen depictions to theorize the new face of African cinema and its contributions to Nigerian, nay African identity construction. This book contributes a voice to the discourse on film industry and what the Nollywood representations actually depict not only for Nigerians who are its proximate consumers but also for the wider world as its global audience. The goal is to problematize the Euro-American imageries of Africa shrouded around such negatives as: diseases, jungle life, pagan rituals, famine, wars, brokenness, poverty, illiteracy, slavery, incivility, among others as they are underscored in typical Hollywood movies. The book brings textual analysis to cultural representation and audience’s interpretations in order to re-think the identity construction of Africans from within and therefore contributes to the intellectual world order of global knowledge economy.

The Rhetoric of Culture in Nollywood by Innocent Ebere Uwah is certainly a fine example and testament to the central importance of communalism that helps to define the culture of the Igbo from the Nigerian region of West Africa, while also speaking to and for the continent of Africa.—Professor Pat Brereton, Dublin City University (DCU), Ireland.

The Rhetoric of Culture in Nollywood is bound to be the first major scholarly work on the subject matter, outside of the usual anthologies which have addressed the issue—Professor Femi Okiremuette Shaka, University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria.