African Novels Research Articles

The Colonial Order Upside Down: “Darkest England” (1996)

Nineteenth-century British explorers are satirized in this reverse travelogue by South African novelist Christopher Hope. This article analyzes the novel, Darkest England, which turns colonialism inside out, sending a Bushman on a mission to the Queen of England - a hazardous journey indeed among the pugnacious, uncivilized muggles in that sodden land. The story, set in 1993, is narrated in the unexcitable tradition of 19th-century-explorer narratives by David Mungo Booi selected by his people to visit the Queen (Booi is the only one with a knowledge of English) to remind her of her grandmother Victoria's pledge to protect them from harm. The aim of this article is to analyze the relationship between two cultures, dominant and oppressed one in Swiftian satire manner on how members of these cultures view one another and how visitors to the metropole are treated in often quite horrifying, laughable, embarrassing and ultimately eye-opening way. The article suggests that both those who used to be oppressors and those who suffered must learn to get to know one another and find some modus vivendi in new circumstances observing heart more than reason.

Parental Narcissism and Its Impact on Child: Amadu Maddy’s Novel “No Past No Present No Future” as Example

The study explores parental narcissism and its impact on child, adopting Amadu’s novel ‘No Past, No Present, No Future’ as example to show how the theory of narcissism could be applied to reexamine Anglophone African novels. The study specifically focuses on how family dynamics and social issues have influenced the mental activities of the major character, Ade and how he fails to cope with the pressures of everyday life, often resulting in psychic dispossession. As such, the researcher uses textual analysis and descriptive criticism approach to unravel the causes and consequences of Ade’s narcissistic disturbance. The theory of narcissism which is dominantly informed by Freudian and post-Freudian approaches to psychology is used to account for the intra-psychic forces which operate within the narcissistic character, Ade and his parents in Amadu’s ‘No Past, No Present, No Future’. The study reveals the existence of character with narcissism, whose psychopathology is as a result of the complementary roles of narcissistic parent-child relationship. The study further reveals that Ade’s narcissistic disturbance is characterized by the fear of being dispossessed, narcissistic form of loving, aggression, and grandiosity.
 
 Received: 4 January 2023 / Accepted: 23 February 2023 / Published: 6 March 2023

The African Novel of Ideas: Philosophy and Individualism in the Age of Global Writing

The African Novel of Ideas: Philosophy and Individualism in the Age of Global Writing

Orature: The Political Interpretation of Performance Framework in <em>Anthills of the Savannah</em> and <em>Half of a Yellow Sun</em>

The focus of discussion in this paper lies in a perception that orature of African written literature is not innocent but a form of control. Operated through its performance framework, the concept of orature provides an angle to observe how African oral tradition penetrates written literature and cultivates an awareness of the political nature both of the material to be written and of the writing process itself. This paper explores the performance framework in two African novels — Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah and Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun. Through such key concepts as event, narrative and self-reflexivity in performance theory, readers can perceive how the spatiotemporal dimension and audience-performer relationship are manipulated and how the four realms of African orature are reflected in these two novels and thereby help decipher their specific political connotations. Achebe and Adichie’s writing practices have indeed created a new purpose for orature in Nigerian literature.

Socio-Cultural Shifts in The Representation of Gender (In)Equality in Africa

Like anywhere else, many African societies were historically characterised by traditional gender roles and patriarchal structures, where men held dominant positions. Over time, social and political discourse on gender (in)equality in Africa has seen growing commitments to reflecting on and addressing gender disparities and equality promotion. Outside social and political discourse, literature has provided a platform to challenge stereotypes and traditional gender-based roles. African authors have portrayed the struggles, resilience, and agency of women in navigating societal expectations, patriarchal structures, and cultural barriers preventing empowerment. Through a Critical Discourse Analysis of a set of francophone African novels, this study provides insights into socio-cultural shifts in the perceptions and representation of gender (in)equality in francophone Africa. It highlights how literary representations both reflect and shape the ongoing discourse surrounding gender (in)equality. It concludes that current socio-cultural shifts in societal expectations vis-à-vis gender-related power structures in Africa can foster impactful gender empowerment.

Africanizing of the English language in African Novels: Analysis of Abdulrazack Gurnah’s Afterlives (2020)

Purpose: This article aimed to ascertain which methods were used to Africanize the language used in Gurnah’s Afterlives. It is well known that Abdulrazack was born and raised in Tanzania (Africa), and how to be an African was reflected in his work through language was the main aim of this article. Unfortunately, studies on Africanizing English language in African novels are few and based on old novels. Therefore, researchers need to analyze the current works written in English by Africans to find out which methods were used to Africanize English in their works.
 Methodology: This research used a descriptive qualitative method. It means that it describes the method used in Gurnah's Afterlives to Africanize the English language based on the data gained through reading the whole content of the novel. This article was grounded on the Languages in Contact theory introduced by Uriel Weinreich's languages in Contact: Findings and Problems (1953). Data were analyzed by using a content analysis-directed approach. 
 Findings: It was found that Gurnah used code-mixing, code-switching, and translation to Africanize English Language. Furthermore, the main reason was to reflect on the language used in daily activities in Tanzanian society.
 Unique Contribution To Theory, Practice and Policy: This article contributes to the theory that, not only in spoken language where we can notice languages in contact, but also in literary works where the writers reflect on how the certain society use language in daily activities. Thus, even though the writer chooses to write in another language, we can still notice the characteristics of his language in his writing, as shown in Gurnah's Afterlives novels.

Walk Down Memory Lane: Racial Injustice in Lewis Nkosi’s Mating Birds

Using as a stepping stone Mating Birds by the late South African novelist Lewis Nkosi, I take a trip down memory lane to grapple with the issue of justice in apartheid era South Africa. The paper argues that the scales of the judiciary under the system of institutionalized racism was heavily weighted in favour of the white minority who ruled the roost in South Africa from 1948 to the early 1990s. Underpinned by a racist ideology that foregrounded the supposed purity of Afrikanerdom, the steamroller of the judicial system under apartheid denied any rights to South African blacks and coloured alike to the point of forefending love across the colour bar. The lead character in Mating Birds, to wit Sibiya, knows only too well the strictures of an unfair administration of justice. Sentenced to death by hanging for allegedly raping a white girl, his dogged impassioned denials fails to pack a punch as the laws of his country make it a crime for a black man to even have designs (no matter how sincere) on a white girl. Tapping into a methodology based on philosophical, sociological, psychoanalytic, psychological perspectives, the paper brings to light the multifaceted cruelty of race-spiked injustice as evidenced by Sidiya’s plight.

The Campus as War Zone: Contemporary Anglophone Fiction, Post-Independence Civil War, and the African University

ABSTRACT This article explores how a set of contemporary Anglophone African novels critically engage the relationship between universities and war. Dinaw Mengestu’s 2014 All Our Names, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s 2006 Half of a Yellow Sun, and Aminatta Forna’s 2010 The Memory of Love are war novels that chronicle the collapse of the postcolonial state in the face of military coups and authoritarian rule in the late 1960s; in all three texts, the university takes on a stealthy significance as the institutional backdrop for that collapse. The transformation of university campuses into war zones in these novels occasions material devastation and both individual and collective trauma. It also exposes deep and longstanding entanglements between war, education, and knowledge production in the postcolony, and invites nuanced reflection on the ambivalent legacy of the 1960s for the present. Beyond these novels’ sober and bleak assessments of post-independence conflict lies an invitation to imagine how war might also serve as a source of knowledge, a means of building and improving upon the anticolonial aspirations that were never fully achieved in the era of independence.

AFRICAN WOMEN’S QUEST FOR MOTHERHOOD IN FLORA NWAPA’S NOVELS EFURU AND IDU

The African classical tradition finds its development in African novel as African novels deals with variety of themes such as art, religion, apartheid, culture, tradition, ironies of life, colonial and post-colonial realities etc. African and Caribbean writing often celebrates black womanhood in a move towards a specifically African feminism. Mother is a person who nurtures and protects. African Literature in all ages celebrates motherhood and gives prime focus to motherhood in women’s’ life. Flora Nwapa, the Mother of female African Literature in English also treats motherhood as her main theme. Nwapa through her works portrays Igbo culture and Igbo Tradition. The lead characters in Efuru and Idu log for motherhood in their life and suffer in life because of it. Though successful in life in all other aspects they are considered incomplete because they are barren. Both the works deals with Motherhood and marriage as its prime focus and suffering of a woman and her quest for selfhood in the family and in society at large.

"РУССКАЯ КОЛЛЕКЦИЯ" ЦЕНТРА ГУМАНИТАРНЫХ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЙ ИМЕНИ ГЭРРИ РЭНСОМА ТЕХАССКОГО ГОСУДАРСТВЕННОГО УНИВЕРСИТЕТА В ОСТИНЕ

The article presents the information about the documents on the history of Russia stored at the Humanities Research Center at Texas State University at Austin (USA). The Harry Ransom Center for humanitarian studies owns an extensive collection of the documents received from individuals (free of charge or on a reimbursable basis) in the form of collections, funds, scattered documents, books, art objects from across Europe and America. The archive accepts for keeping not only the documents, but also the works of fund-makers. Visitors to the archive have an opportunity to conduct research in various fields of humanitarian knowledge: from the English dramatic poetry of the 17th century to the works of modern African novelists, from the modern French musical compositions to the Italian poetry of the 13th century. The Humanities Research Center has also collected a set of documents on Russian history, literature, music, and painting. The information on the history of Russia is contained in the diaries, letters, memoirs of Russian emigrants and American citizens. The most extensive part of the collection consists of the letters discussing the organization of political movements in the emigration environment, the issues of everyday life, the matters connected with moving from Europe to the United States. The documentary complex also includes the sketches of theatrical costumes and scenery, music score manuscripts, the photographs of the Russian artists, composers, actors who left Soviet Russia in 1918–1925. The chronological framework of the documentary complex covers the period from the First World War to the beginning of the Thaw period.

Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God: The Investigation of Current Environmental Degradation

Literature in relation to the natural world and the environment is the subject of ecocriticism. The current global environmental crisis has made it urgent to examine literature from an ecological point of view. By examining the ways in which the natural world and the environment are portrayed in literature, ecocriticism seeks to identify a method to improve the current ecological predicament. The fusion of ecocriticism with postcolonialism has given new life to critical thought overall, providing fresh perspectives on concepts like race, land, environment, wildness, etc. The two African novels, Things Fall Apart (1958) and Arrow of God (1965) chosen for the examination haven't often been studied from an ecocritical angle, but the current paper has attempted to look at how nature and the environment are portrayed in them. This analysis aims to show that, despite pre-colonial African societies being unaffected by nature, colonialism opened the door for its exploitation while neglecting or demeaning the profound values that nature and the environment had for pre-colonial Africans.

Language Use in Alobwed’epie’s The Death Certificate: A Postmodernist Analysis

This paper addresses language use in Alobwed’epie’s the Death Certificate from a postmodernist perspective. It seeks to show that the author of the selected novel, like many postcolonial African writers, attempts to assert his culture through some sort of indigenisation and intentional flouting of old canons of literature. Given that the present paper is anchored on postmodernism, the postmodernist theory the author’s is used to explain Alobwed’Epie’s perception of life and literature to assert his cultural identity through some sort of linguistic revolution. As a matter of fact, language is used in a very carefree and innovative way in order to escape the idealistic dictum of literary norms. Indigenisation is then regarded as a postmodernist technique, which aims at valorising the African identity and rejecting all the metanarratives of how a work of art should be produced. Obviously, in the present article postmodernism are both a theoretical framework and an object of study. The use of local languages and other languages like Pidgin in the novel under study has demonstrated that the then marginalised languages have moved from the margin towards the Centre and become established languages of African literature. The paper briefly discusses the emergence of postmodernism and shows how the traditional conventions have been deconstructed and substituted for new ideologies that have revolutionised the African literary landscape. It equally reviews selected previous works on language in African novels as well as on postmodernism that came up in the late 1950s as revolutionary responses to preceding movements. The paper ends with an account of the linguistic features of postmodernism used in the novel.

Relations interpersonnelles et esthétique des liens conjugaux alternatifs dans « Lointaines sont les rives du destin » de Kama Kamanda

Some West African novels describe the woman as a victim of the prenatal alliance, while others, like the text of Kama Kamanda, make her a rebel. Is this thematic split not due to the desire to create a new type of interpersonal relationship based on an alternative way of living together? The sociocriticism of Edmond Cros, through its operational declensions of phenotext and the genotext, gives direction to this reflection. Women’s infidelity was analyzed in order to make an apperception of the marital bonds.

REBELLION AND REVOLUTIONARY CONSCIOUSNESS: A CRITICAL READING OF SELECTED FRANCOPHONE AFRICAN NOVELS

Neo-liberalism, democracy, or whatever paradigm you call it, the post-colonial experience in Africa has shown that the quest for a balanced system that includes social justice and an equitable distribution of resources (the wealth of the nation) remains a mirage. Hence, the citizenry, having been predisposed to their fundamental human rights, continues to demand good governance and accountability from the authorities that be. Based on the theory of Marxism and psycho-cultural conflict theories, selected African novels in French: Oyono’s Le vieux nègre et la médaille, Ousmane’s Les bouts de bois de Dieu, Sow Fall’s La grève des bàttu, Bâ’s Une si longue lettre, Ilboudo’s Les vertiges du trône, and Keta’s Rebelle are critically reviewed to harvest the information needed for this study. Marxism focuses on class struggle and condemns social imbalances caused by capitalism on economic and political fronts. The psycho-cultural conflict theory regards the role of cultural beliefs in conflicts as fundamental and critical to possible conflict resolution solutions. Findings suggest that both collective and individual revolts can bring about the desired social change in human societies. The study concludes that in a genuine search for enduring development, therefore, political leaders, particularly in underdeveloped countries, should step up their political will and be more responsible as well as accountable to the common men who elected them to power.

Mines and Mountains: Mine Dump Aesthetics, Marikana, and Contemporary South African Fiction

The mine dump, long a useful metonym for South African writers, has receded from view in "Johannesburg fiction" of recent years. By contrast, in the visual arts, there has been a burgeoning of renewed engagement with mines and mine dumps. Does this tell us something about representation, and the unrepresentable, in these different creative forms? Mine dumps, urban mountains, are related to histories of oppression, to ongoing economic inequality, and to environmental degradation, but they are still visually impressive. For about a decade, South African novelists have tended to avoid this paradox. One might extrapolate such a trend to suggest that, while in the visual arts there is some level of continuity—the continuation of a tradition—when it comes to fiction there has been a rupture, or at least a disruption. Is it that mine dumps are too familiar, that it has become impossible to avoid cliché in literary evocations of them? Or is the rupture to some degree coterminous with the Marikana massacre of 2012? Marikana has been the subject of essays, poems, long form journalism, and nonfiction books, as well as documentary films, music, and theater. But it has not substantially or explicitly found its way into literary fiction. Like the artificial mine-mountains of the reef, Marikana's natural "mountain," Wonderkop, seems to remain out of the immediate purview of contemporary fiction. While Marikana might mark the end of one phase and the beginning of another in South African literary production, it is not (as yet) encompassed by or taken account of in the country's fiction.

Transcending Hegemonic Phallic-Culture and Imaginaries: Afropolitan Feminism and Relocation as an Emancipatory Metaphor

The representation of the struggles of contemporary African women from low-income/middle-class families, and their attempt at breaking free from the hold of such struggles have not gained much attention in the criticism of recent African novels. To bridge this research gap, this study interrogates Helon Habila‘s Travellers; NoViolet Bulawayo‘s We Need New Names; and Chimamanda Adichie‘s Americanah. It underscores the experiences of Darling, Ifemelu, and Mary, as existential struggles which allegorize real-life challenges of low-income/middle-class contemporary African women, and their attempt to break free from the bounds of such challenges aggravated by a hegemonic phallic culture and imaginaries. Adopting a qualitative content-based analytic method and a conceptual framework anchored on the conflated term Afropolitan-feminism; the study demonstrates how the characters’ dissatisfaction with patriarchal exertions and their local geography animated by limited existential opportunities spurred their desire to relocate outside Africa. Importantly, their relocation constitutes a signature of action which could be read as an emancipatory metaphor for transcending those hegemonic structures, norms, worldviews, and imaginaries which militate against twenty-first-century African women's quest for agency.

Ecological Violations and Anthropogenic Pollution in Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s Wizard of the Crow

ABSTRACT Ecological violations and anthropogenic pollution have been recurring motifs in contemporary African novels. Existing studies on African literature from the ecological standpoint have focused largely on the narrative strategies of nature writing, with little attention given to the impacts and the attendant eco-social and economic crisis of the violations. This study therefore examines the extent of human activities on the environment and the eco-social and economic impacts on both human and non-human objects in Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s Wizard of the Crow. Anthropocene developed by Adam Trexler, which is a variant of ecocriticism, is used as a framework in this study because it accounts for attitudes that are unhealthy for the environment, while interpretive design is adopted for critical analysis. Ngũgĩ’s Wizard of the Crow is selected because it reflects on ecological concerns and depicts the motif of a polluted environment. In the text, the conspiracies of the internal collaborators with foreign powers lead to the massive violation of land in Kenya. Conspiracies between the privileged locals and the settlers distort and violate environmental harmony in a way that creates tension for ecological regeneration and social tranquillity. It is also established that environmental disasters in Kenya and Africa in general, are largely man-made as seen in the activities of most of the characters in the novel. Although Ngũgĩ uses metaphorical and grotesque images in the text, they refract his society ecologically. There are sustained struggles between male and female characters in the novel that are geared towards the preservation of the environment. This underscores the fact that environmental activism knows no gender colouration. This novel points out that there can never be meaningful development in Kenya until the ecosystem is made secure from human corruption and the environment is devoid of carbon pollution and injustice. To Ngũgĩ, healing the land is a concerted effort that cannot be done by one person. Ngũgĩ’s Wizard of the Crow creates awareness about environmental exploitation by the microscopic few of Kenya and indeed Africa.

Daring to Be Different: The First-Person HIV-Positive Narrator in Two South African Novels

Masande Ntshanga’s novel The Reactive (2014) is the first South African novel written by a black male writer to feature the first-personvoice of an HIV-positive man, Lindanathi. Following Kgebetli Moele’s The Book of the Dead (2009), which gave the virus itself a voice, The Reactive heralds a significant shift in the portrayal of HIV in South African literature. Eben Venter’s Afrikaans novel Ek Stamel, EkSterwe (1996) which was translated into English by Luke Stubbs as My Beautiful Death (2004), and which has – significantly – received little critical review in English as an HIV narrative, tells the story of a white South African man, Konstant, in the Australian diaspora whoeventually succumbs to AIDS. Both novels complicate ideas of masculinity and can be described as ‘coming of age’ narratives or bildungsromans. Both novels sit historically on the cusp of change, before and after the widespread availability of ARVs. Given theircommonality of subject and narrative perspective, these texts seem ripe for comparison despite their authors’ different backgrounds. The shifts and continuities in the representation of HIV/AIDS found between these two novels, published 18 years apart, seem to disrupt the trajectory of the post-colonial bildungsroman as it is mediated (for the first time?) through the HIVpositive narrator. Reading these two novels together helps us to understand literary patterns, associations and dissociations, which reveal a cultural symbology of HIV/AIDS, part of a wider cultural symbology of illness in South African literature.

Inequality, legitimacy and disidentification: From South African to global modernism

AbstractEntrenched inequality within South African society has led to a notable focus within literary criticism on the subject of legitimacy. The perennial question of who has access to narrative representation and how this authority is wielded has informed literary production itself—with some writers, invariably emerging from the elite, attempting to circumvent or undermine the assumed claims of legitimacy which attend the novel. This article discusses how a particular modernist form, narratorial disidentification, coheres around this preoccupation with inequality and legitimacy, overturning idealist accounts of moral agency in history through an emphasis on the determination of the material environment. Narratorial disidentification subverts the normative structure of the novel, assuming that the legitimate subject of society is not narratable within the novel form. Drawing on the work of Warwick Research Collective (WReC), in particular their expanded sense of modernism, this article argues that experiences of social bifurcation in semi‐peripheral locations are translated into this form of narrative coldness which seeks to undermine readerly identification and emphasize externality. It indicates how Camus'sThe Strangercan be productively re‐read by considering the employment of this form by a number of South African novelists—from Nadine Gordimer'sThe Late Bourgeois Worldunder apartheid, to postapartheid with Zoë Wicomb'sPlaying in The Lightand Achmat Dangor'sBitter Fruit. This allows not only for formal continuities across apartheid‐postapartheid to be historicized, but offers a comparative lens for approaching novelistic form within global contexts of inequality.

Chinua Achebe's No Longer at Ease: The Conflict of Values in Post-colonial History of Nigeria

As a reaction to the European dominance on the African continent, African novelists showed a nationalistic feeling in their novels, and this national awareness gave them the opportunity to present the contemporary African experience. In the region that was occupied by the British, Nigeria in particular, the novelists’ interest was to show the impacts of the settlement period on the peoples of that region. Chinua Achebe was one of the most prominent Nigerian novelists who dedicated their novels to represent the psychological, social and cultural conflicts that Africans experienced as a result of the European intrusion into African life. The events and scenes of his novels were taken more from the reality of African life than from the world of imagination. His No Longer at Ease provides a critique of post-independence Nigerian life and an assessment of what it inherited from the European settler. The events of the novel deal with an African young man and the crisis he experienced as a result of the conflict between the European intellectual culture that he acquired during his studies in England and what he inherited of tribal and family traditions and values. The novel reveals the protagonist's lack of the moral courage to face the pressures of the conflict between the European materialistic ideals and the African traditions, which leads to his failure and moral downfall. The novel thus becomes an invitation, on the level of values ​​, for an assessment of the behavior of the cultural elite that will take over the leadership of modern Nigeria and their ways to deal with the legacy of settlement.