Contemporary African Literature in English

Contemporary African Literature in English

This page intentionally left blank

Contemporary African Literature in English Global Locations, Postcolonial Identifications Madhu Krishnan Department of English, University of Bristol, UK

Madhu Krishnan 2014 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-37832-3 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6 10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2014 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-47828-6 ISBN 978-1-137-37833-0 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9781137378330 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India.

Contents Acknowledgements vi Introduction: Writing Africa in a Global Marketplace 1 1 Ethics, Conflict and Re(-)presentation 17 2 Race, Class and Performativity 39 3 Gender and Representing the Unrepresentable 67 4 Mythopoetics and Cultural Re-Creation 96 5 Global African Literature: Strategies of Address and Cultural Constraints 130 Conclusion: Writing Africa s Futures? 164 Notes 173 Bibliography 199 Index 216 v

Acknowledgements This project began as an idea which came at the end of my doctoral studies and has since developed across three institutions and with the generous input of countless colleagues, friends and practitioners working in African literary studies and postcolonial studies, more broadly. I am grateful to Máire Ní Fhlathúin who, while acting as my doctoral supervisor in the School of English at the University of Nottingham, was both a sage advisor and meticulous reader of the papers and presentations which formed the earliest kernels of this study. I owe Máire a particular debt of gratitude for encouraging me to think beyond the literary text to the circuits of production which define its appearance in the world and for her encouragement in the development of my academic career. Equally, I would be remiss not to acknowledge my doctoral examiners, Matthew Green, at the University of Nottingham, and Patrick Williams, at Nottingham Trent University, for their insightful comments on my work, ideas for future avenues of inquiry and continued support. This monograph was largely drafted and revised while I spent a year working in the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics at Newcastle University. I am enormously grateful to all of my colleagues in the School for the warm and convivial atmosphere in which this book was written. I d like to particularly thank Kate Chedzgoy for her mentorship and interest in my professional advancement and James Procter and Neelam Srivastava for being inspiring role models, providing constant intellectual stimulation and showing me the ways in which academic research can come alive in our postcolonial present. My thanks also go to James Annesley and Anne Whitehead, who both provided me with invaluable guidance in navigating the waters of academic publishing and who offered much needed perspective beyond the world of the postcolonial. While at Newcastle, I was extraordinarily fortunate to be a part of the Newcastle Postcolonial Research Group. My thanks go to Janelle Rodriques, Tom Langley, Claire Irving, Marie Stern-Peltz, Joe Barton, Alex Adams and Laura Routley for the conversations, debates and drinks which sustained this project. vi

Acknowledgements vii The editing and final stages of this project took place during my first months at the University of Bristol. My thanks to all of my colleagues in the Department of English for their support, encouragement and commiseration. I have been fortunate to be a part of a lively and always-interesting cohort of colleagues working in African literatures on four continents. My thanks go to Hamish Dalley, Christopher Ouma, Steph Newell, Shauna Morgan Kirlew and Louis Chude-Sokei for their generosity of spirit in reading and thoughtfully commenting on draft sections of this monograph. I am especially grateful to Palgrave Macmillan for the ease with which this project was developed and progressed through the publication process. Particular thanks go to the anonymous reader, whose comments were both thoughtful and thorough and have helped shape this monograph into its current form, Ben Doyle, who has been unfailingly insightful and encouraging as my commissioning editor, and Sophie Ainscough, who has patiently guided me through the murky fields of editing and production. I would also like to thank all of the editors with whom I have been fortunate to work in the process of developing this study. Parts of Chapter 3 concerning exoticism in Half of a Yellow Sun have been published in a different form as Abjection and the Fetish: Reconsidering the Construction of the Postcolonial Exotic in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie s Half of a Yellow Sun, Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 48.1 (2012), 26 38, <http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjpw20>, reproduced here with the permission of Taylor & Francis. Chapter 4 s discussion of GraceLand and the ogbanje previously appeared as Beyond Tradition and Progress: Re-imagining Nigeria in Chris Abani s Graceland, Re-imagining Africa: Creative Crossings, edited by Simon Gikandi and Jane Wilkinson, Anglistica, 15.2 (2011), 97 106, <http://www.anglistica.unior.it>, reprinted by permission of Università degli Studi di Napoli L Orientale. Sections of Chapter 5, discussing the trope of the book within the book in GraceLand and Half of a Yellow Sun, have been published in an extended form as On National Culture and the Projective Past: Mythology, Nationalism, and the Heritage of Biafra in Contemporary Nigerian Narrative, CLIO: A Journal of Literature, History, and the Philosophy of History, 42.2 (2013), 187 208, <http://www.ipfw.edu/clio/>, reprinted by permission of Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.

viii Acknowledgements Special thanks go to my family, Krishnaswamy, Durgalakshmi, Sriram, Lori and Sathvika Krishnan, for always and unfailingly encouraging me in all of my pursuits and their tireless support, both material and emotional. Last, but by no means least, I am more grateful than words can convey to Jason Ellis, my partner in life and everything that goes with it, without whom none of this would have been possible and whose love has sustained me beyond all things.