African modernism' introduces a more problematic theme. What is African modernism? It is not a term that is commonly used. In fact, critics are judicious in their use of conjunctions, prepositions and punctuation to separate the two words, so that discussions revolve around Africa and modernism, modernism in Africa, or African literature after modernism. 1 On the rare occasions when the words appear alongside one another, as in a subtitle in a 2015 survey essay by Nicholas Meihuizen, a question mark is used to express doubt about its conceptual viability: 'African Modernism?'. 2 My title is unusual then, because it does not subject 'African modernism' to the usual conditions or exceptions, and so expresses (in highly condensed form)the book's central thesis: Anglophone South African literature is inaugurated and persists as modernism. The point of departure for this claim is the work of Schreiner, who, as the first South African novelist, played a formative role in the development of a distinctly South African literary practice. I argue that the key aspects of her writing -her use of experimental allegory and primitivist discourse to express anti-imperialist views -facilitate the modelling of an

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Graphic novels written in response to the 1994 Rwandan genocide do not confine their depictions of traumatic violence to humans, but extend their coverage to show how the genocide impacted on animals and the environment. Through analysis of the presentation of people and their relationships with other species across a range of graphic narratives, this article shows how animal imagery was used to justify inhumane actions during the genocide, and argues that representations of animals remain central to the recuperation processes in a post-genocide context too. Whilst novels and films that respond to the genocide have been the focus of scholarly work, the graphic novel has yet to receive substantial critical attention. Therefore, this article unlocks the archive of French-, Dutch-, and English-language graphic narratives written in response to the genocide by providing the first in-depth, comparative analysis of their animal representations. It draws on recent methodological approaches derived from philosophy, postcolonial ecocriticism, and postcolonial trauma theory in order to show how human-centred strategies for recovery, and associated symbolic orders that forcefully position the animal outside of human law, continue to engender unequal and potentially violent relationships between humans, and humans and other species. In this way, graphic narratives that gesture towards more equitable relationships between humans, animals, and the environment can be seen to support the processes of recovery and reconciliation in post-genocide Rwanda.

Lucy Bland, Modern Women on Trial: Sexual Transgression in the Age of the Flapper, Manchester and New York, Manchester University Press, 2013, 246pp, £17.99 paperback Lucy Bland's Modern Women on Trial: Sexual Transgression in the Age of the Flapper is an incisive and highly accomplished study of constructions of femininity and sexuality in war and post-war contexts. Through analysis of the role of young female protagonists in a range of British court trials that took place between 1918 and 1924, Bland skilfully weaves together complex arguments about gender, sexuality, class, race and national identity.Although material contained in four of the five chapters has appeared in shorter or altered forms in previously published articles and essays, the thematic synergies between the topics covered means that the book still warrants attention as a single, unified piece of work. The previously unpublished second chapter, 'Butterfly women, "Chinamen", dope fiends and metropolitan allure', is an excellent addition, as it helps to bring together the different strands of Bland's arguments about 'types' of women (p4), and examines in depth the meanings generated by recurrent use of Orientalist discourse in trial proceedings, press coverage and other media. Each of the chapters introduces accounts of the key events, protagonists and context, before moving on to investigate the broader social resonances, connections and lasting corollaries of the trials. This structure is readily accessible and makes for compelling reading as it allows Bland to demonstrate her skills as both story-teller and critic.The introduction delineates the cultural significance of the figure of the 'modern woman-cum-flapper', who, Bland argues, represents 'immorality, generational challenge, and the erosion of stability, particularly in relation to gender relations and the family' as well as class and sexuality (pp3-4). Lines of enquiry pertaining to the presentation of women in criminal and legal contexts are laid out, as is the role of the popular press in sensationalising, perpetuating, and occasionally, challenging, a range of female 'types'. Bland carefully maps out important contextual details, including the impact of war and immigration on gender relations, sexuality, leisure and lifestyle, in order to provide the necessary backdrop to the events explored in the book. The

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