Metatextualities in the Kenyan Swahili novel: A case study reading of Kyallo Wamitila’s Dharau ya Ini

Abstract

Contemporary Swahili novels transgress the boundaries of the novel text itself. They employ metatextualities of different categories in order to fulfil a variety of functions. In this essay, I explore metatextualities in the Kenyan Swahili novel, and provide a case study reading of one of the novels by the prolific and award-winning writer Kyallo Wadi Wamitila. My reading of Wamitila’s novel Dharau ya Ini (Contempt of the Liver, 2007) concentrates on metanarration and metareference. I analyse how narration, especially point of view, is used and how it is discussed and reflected upon by the text and in the text itself (metanarration). Another focus will be put on instances of metareference, especially on references to oral literature and to the literary genres of drama and poetry, as part of a work of prose. These analyses are done by a close reading informed by current research on metatextualities, and, in one of the examples, by phonostylistics. A general purpose of this study is to show how Swahili novel writing as African language writing participates in global discourses on, and practices in, literature and the arts. In a perspective of East(ern) African literature, it argues that Swahili literature and literary studies provide stimuli to literary theory and practice otherwise still dominated by its Anglophone counterpart in the region, and beyond. As regards Swahili literature, it reflects the crucial impact of Kenyan writing since about the turn of the millennium, in a sphere hitherto dominated by writers from Tanzania. The study is part of a research project I am undertaking in analysing metatextualities in contemporary Swahili novels by both Tanzanian and Kenyan writers.