Familial cartographies in contemporary East African short stories

Abstract

Using two East African short stories by Binyavanga Wainiana and Muthoni Garland, this article explores literal, literary and nation-families as recurrent motifs in contemporary East African short stories, which comment on intergenerational relationships and the ensuing patterns of power relations. If, as much scholarship on the post-colonial state opines, the disintegration of the state in Africa ushered in a shift towards family networks, and, broadly, the domestic space, then contemporary East African short stories would seem to suggest that the refuge offered by the family space has, at best, been fraught with contradictions, with the familial space emerging as both a space of healing and a site haunted by the same predatory dynamics that mark the phallocratic state. It is in this environment that the arts – music, literature and other arts – seem to offer a platform for cross-generational critical engagement.