The Coral Island are, in his own words, "adventure stories for young folks", and "The Coral Island" is no exception. It is a Robinsonade, a genre of fiction inspired by Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" (1719), one of the most popular of its type, and one of the first works of juvenile fiction to feature exclusively juvenile heroes. Susan Maher, professor of English, notes that in comparison to "Robinson Crusoe" such books generally replaced some of the original's romance with a "pedestrian realism", exemplified by works such as "The Coral Island" and Frederick Marryat's 1841 novel "Masterman Ready, or the Wreck of the Pacific".
The African (Conton novel) The African (Conton novel) The African is the 1964 debut novel by Sierra Leonean novelist and educator William Farquhar Conton. It was the 12th work published in Heinemann's African Writers Series. The novel's plot revolves around the romance between a black African student and a white South African woman in England. The novel turns autobiographical elements into a call for Africa to move as a continent beyond apartheid. Wole Soyinka criticised its utopian "love optimism", calling the novel's main character, Kamara, an "unbelievable prig". Contemporary reviewer Mercedes Mackay describe the novel as a "promising first novel" which excels in highlighting