The Journal of African Literature and Culture # 8

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African Tradition and Contemporary Writing

9-10

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FORUM ESSAY

ANJALI GERA ROY

The Folktale in Achebe�s Fiction

Far from contributing to their novels' anthropological flavour or acting as symbolic devices, folk materials revise the anthropological discourse of the West through which African cultures were inferioritized by juxtaposing an alternative idiom�of African orature−with its own unique manner of structuring reality that might offer a way of ending Africa's discursive indentureship to the West.  

13-34

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TRADITIONS

DIVINE NEBA CHE

Tradition and Creation: Oral Performance among the Graffi

As an examination of the dual status of the oral performer of the Grasslands of the North West Region of Cameroon, this paper proposes a challenge for Africans and lovers of her culture to sustain the methods of creative transmission through the continuing presence of the African performer who is a living proof of the survival of her oral traditions.

37-52

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CLIVE  ILAMI-KRAMA

�The Lost Voice�: Rumuji Women Dance in Nigeria

African traditional societies encouraged a wide range of human expression which creates identity for members of the community. With the Rumuji group, women take the centre stage as dancers, singers and drummers. The dance propels communicative action and widens the communicative strength of women in the community.

53-64

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IDENTITY /NATIONHOOD

SURA KHRAIS

Can the Subaltern Speak? Language and the Crisis of Identity in Nadine Gordimer�s  July�s People

This paper depicts how the linguistic relationship between the white heroine and the black hero in Nadine Gordimer�s novel reflects three different phases of linguistic communication. Borrowing from Spivak, it defines the black servant as the silent subaltern who finally becomes a speaking subject and thus overcomes the crisis of identity caused by the intruding foreign culture represented by the white mistress.

67-78

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JAIRUS OMUTECHE

Identity and Belonging in the Novels of Ngugi and Vassanji

European imperialism led to the most widespread disruption of communities in the world. In their texts, Petals of Blood and The In-Between World of Vikram Lall, Ngugi and Vassanji represent the resultant communities and identities of some of these disruptions. This essay shows how both authors capture a society haunted by the loss of values and historical opportunities that could have held together the communities of contemporary Kenya.

79-102

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SARAH AGBOR AND EDWIN TANGWA

Nationhood and Otherness in Ayi Kwei Armah�s The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born

Armah using sordid imagery and symbolic language of narrative exposes nationhood in Africa as a farce: the great idea of the oneness of the African peoples against the colonial, oppressive, repressive and exploitative �self� and the rhetoric of �otherness� was nothing but a ploy that only served, and continues to serve, the interests of a few cabal.

103-118

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MICHAEL WALONEN

Power, Patriarchy, and Postcolonial Nationalism in the African-Dictator Novel

This paper draws attention to the rich sub-Saharan African literature found within the genre of the novel over the past four decades and serving as a means of interrogating the rise of autocratic regimes across the continent in the years following the downfall of the various colonial orders that had previously held sway.

120-136

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PERSPECTIVES

ANURAG KUMAR AND SMITA JHA

Gloria Naylor�s Women 

The writers show how in the short period of time since her first novel, The Women of Brewster Place, Gloria Naylor has established herself as a self-avowed feminist and black cultural nationalist who joins a wide assortment of earlier in a dialogue on the authentic representations of human condition

SOPHIA I. AKHUEMOKHAN AND ABIGAIL O. ERUAGA

�Imperfect Sympathy�: Naguib Mahfouz and the Portrait of the Nubian

The writers argue that Mahfouz has a fixed image of the Nubian which dominates his imagination. Although he is conscious of the subjugation of the race, and does not endeavour to hide it, he is apparently unmindful of the full implications of this subjugation. His inability to identify with Nubians as equals, his predisposition to employ stereotyped concepts of the Nubian, and his intermittent, distressingly patronizing stance would remind the reader of the orthodox benign colonial writer.

155-170

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JUDE AGHO AND �DELE BAMIDELE

Fiction as Praxis: Exploring Iyayi�s Marxist Aesthetics

Using Festus Iyayi's three novels, Violence, The Contract and Heroes this study draws a nexus between the aesthetic of the novel and the social experience that nurtures the literary consciousness of the writer. It shows how the fictionist imbues his art with a social vision that seeks to deconstruct elitist colonial apparatuses in favour of progressive ideals for socio-economic rebirth. It also provides a rationale for Iyayi�s combative stance in the face of widespread poverty, and inequality that occasioned the post-colonial period of modern African nations.

171-186

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REVIEWS

DIANNE SHOBER

Sindiwe Magona: Interrogating Black Township Life in Apartheid South Africa

Magona uses her stories to validate her lived experience and highlight events long past. Her life writing bridges ghostly worlds of a black girl surviving and thriving in Apartheid�s clutches, formulating like most self narratives, both her own identity and the identity of the culture in which she participates.

189-204

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ROSETTA CODLING

Colonial chattel, Postcolonial whores: The African daughters of Sefi Atta and Isabel Allende

The novelists Sefi Atta and Isabel Allende sculpt African Diasporic female protagonists of different dimensions to illustrate the harsh reality of their lives. While the staid, western female heroine is White and embroiled in battles against White males that attempt to marginalize her existence based, primarily, upon her gender or class, for the African Diasporic female these challenges extend beyond the borders of her breasts and genitalia.

205-218

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REMI ADEDOKUN, UKO ATAI ANDOSEDEBAMEN DAVID OAMEN

Femi Osofisan�s Protreptic

This review of Femi Osofisan�s play No More the Wasted Breed x-rays the process through which reasoning interacts in favour of the oppressed, in text and performance and appreciates the playwright�s use of myth, an essential element in African drama, to strengthen his characters and audience to reason rather than emotion.

219-226

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