CHAPTER - 1

Introduction
 Chapter-I

Introduction

African writing in English "has established its presence and

reputation quickly"' in the last quarter of the twentieth century. The

corpus of African writing constitutes a very significant part of the

postcolonial literary discourse. The social, cultural and political changes

to which Africa had been subjected since colonization find expression in

the contemporary African fiction. The frustration and despair of Africans

after independence, when the indigenous rulers appeared in "black skin

[with] white masks"^ and other problematic issues related to erstwhile

colonized natives form a significant part of postcolonial African writings.

The spread of imperialism in Africa had far reaching consequences,

which greatly affected not only the political and social scene, but had far-

reaching ramifications on African literature as well. Modern African

literature has developed out of the colonial experience taking into

account the different cultural, historical and social background.

The end of the colonial rule gave rise to short lived hope in many

newly independent African countries. However, the continuing western

economic, political, military and ideological influences resulted in a new

kind of colonialism. Postcolonial African writings resist these forces of

colonialism and its power politics, produced both during and mainly after

colonial period. It is out of this impulse to resist colonialism and its

 exploitative ideology that modern African literature has developed taking

cognizance of the different social, historical and cultural factors.

The African novelists in their fictional writings have tried to

relocate and reconstruct the literary, economic, and socio-cultural

positions of their society. Their sense of commitment is manifest in their

writings and they have come to identify themselves with the social and

political movements of Africans in their fight for human rights. The

reverberations of the political upheavals in the African continent find an

expression in the contemporary African fiction. So "almost as a rule, the

new African literature... [has become] a literature of tension and agony

and deferred hope of self-introspection and self-assertion."^

The African literature speaks primarily about the people of its own

country and expresses their hopes, fears and aspirations. It concentrates

on both the periods - colonial and postcolonial. Initially, the literature of

the preindependence period was "a literature of frontier kind,"

predominantly concerned with anti-colonial responses. One of the most

explicit examples is Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart^ which is

dominated by an intense cultural nationalism. These writers dealt with

the effects of colonization and they "reasoned that Africa's dignity and

values, which were felled by the sword of westernized invaders, must be

recovered by the pen of the Africans."** These writers were not only upset

with the political leaders of postindependent Africa but with "the

hypocrisy of religious leaders and with the ineffectuality and sheer

apathy of the intellectuals"' as well.

2
 The African literature is predominantly what may be called "a

protest literature."^ Before independence it protested against the

encroachment of Britishers on the well-knit and cohered tribal societies

"lamenting the loss of an integrated multi-racial society."^ It raised a

voice against the imposition of alien religion on the traditional ways of

life and colonial rule which was "the most traumatic event in the life of

the African people."'° After independence, the literary writers have to

meet the challenges of contemporary reality of African society which has

not been able to fully recover from the traumatic effects of its first

confrontation with European imperialism.

The demand for freedom, social justice and equality runs through

the African literature, pre and postindependent and the African writers

present the critique of the socio-political structure of the Africa;; society.

Through their form of protest, they tend to focus the contemporary reality

in their respective nation states. Thus, they have treated the social,

cultural and traditional changes most exquisitely in their fictional works.

African fiction emerges as a kind of reaction to the Eurocentric

version of the Africans portrayed in terms of 'a savage' inhabiting 'a dark

continent'. The Europeans were either ignorant of the apparent African

reality or refused to accept what was detrimental in their imperial designs

or agenda. However, African novel has been able to capture the true

African reality in social and political terms. Thus, the Afrocentric view

of the reality offered by postcolonial African literature as opposed to the

Eurocentric negative representation of Africa "attempts to dismantle and

de-center European hegemonic authority.""

Colonialism interrupted the course of close-knit traditional African

societies leading to the break up of their social structure under the

pressure of colonial forces especially due to the enforcement of a new

religion, culture and language. The colonizers made an attempt to

establish a new social structure which aimed at killing the native culture.

Sylvain Bembo makes his protagonist record the pathetic condition of

Africans in precolonial era:

The colonization of the Africans by the West ought to be

prosecuted for the rape of a minor...It became a competition to see

who could penetrate further. Who cared if the victim brutally

robbed for her virginity remained marked for the rest of her life?'^

Once the colonial forces acquired supremacy, the natives were

compelled to adopt and accommodate themselves to the changed reality.

Though the main cause of the exploitation and oppression of the

colonized...[was] political, there are [were] psychological, social

and cultural contradictions and conflicts inherent in the two world

views of the colonizer and the colonized. Living on the margins of

both, such colonial hybrid creates [created] a sub-culture of the

colonial elite.'^

Thus, the natives had been compelled by the colonialists to live in a

disintegrated society and were robbed of the native traditional system

through economic, political, cultural and social exploitative force of

colonialists

Colonization operated not only on political level but also on

psychological, social and cultural levels and led to the conflict between

the two "contrasting world views of the colonizer and the colonized."'''

The communal identity of the Igbo society came under the attack of

colonialism. Under western influence the inherent traditional values

disappeared from the native society and Nigerian society, which in a

larger context relates to whole African society transgressed from

traditional to transitional stage because colonialism created a dilemma

among the Africans. According to Jan Mohamed:

[Colonialism] puts the native in a double kind. If he chooses

conservatively and remains loyal to his indigenous culture, then he

opts to stay in a calcified society whose developmental momentum

has been checked by colonization. If, however, the colonized

person chooses assimilation, then he is trapped in a form of

historical catalepsy because colonial education severs him from his

own past and replaces it with the study of colonizer's past.

Thus, the cultural and political emancipation of African people and

an assertion of African character and identity became the prominent

theme of precolonial African literature. Since the natives had been the

object of neglect and exploitation by the colonial society for centuries,

the writers like Achebe integrated themselves with the social milieu in

order to "rehabilitate the African psyche damaged in its cultural

5
encounter with the West."'^ In Achebe's own words, in precolonial era,

"colonialism is [was] responsible...for the development of national

literatures around the world...or it may be some mixture of the affects of

colonization, including the bringing together of various nations into one

nation."'^

The postcolonial African writings differ from those written during

the precolonial period in its intent and essence. Though the above

discussion regarding precolonialism is out of context of the present study,

it is important to know the hypothesis of the precolonial period and its

writings including the themes of those writings in order to have a more

candid perception of postcolonial African writings for postcolonialism in

a way is an offshoot of colonialism. In precolonial period, literary

writings were in a way used to awaken the conscience of the natives to

enable them realize their own individuality and raise a common voice

against the foreign enemy. The postcolonial writings focus more

prominently on the socio-political situation after independence.

Postindependence involves a struggle "to evolve a liberated discourse,

free from the cultural imperialism of the West."'* This difference between

pre and postcolonial writings with their respective concerns is a major

characteristic feature of postindependent African literature because both

the periods mirror the socio-political upheavals.

The term 'postcolonial' draws support for its usefulness as an

"umbrella term,"'^ a way of bracketing together the literature written in

those countries which were once colonies of Britain. The postcolonial

African literature emerged in its present form out of the experience of

colonization and aims at "re-examining the history and legacy of

colonialism and incorporating the perspectives of the colonized - 'the

half [that] has never been t o l d . " "

Postcolonialism, thus, refers to both an era after colonialism and to

a set of critical attitudes taken tov^ards it. "It is the discourse of

oppositionality which colonialism brings into being,"^' and postcolonial

African literature critically scrutinizes the relationship between the

"colonizer and the colonized."^'' Thus, postcolonialism has been rightly

defined as "the world as it exists during and after the period of European

imperial domination and the effects of this on contemporary

literatures."^"'

African postcolonial literature can be defined as an emergent

twentieth century critical practice that reached full definition in the last

twenty years of the twentieth century. It analyses the colonial discourse

in Africa and "forces a rethinking of contemporary understanding of

colonialism, of how it operated and the impact it exerted"^'' on Africans.

So it can also be loosely defined as "what happened after colonialism

officially ended including rethinking the whole complex of reactions to

colonialism across the entire range of human achievement under systems

of imperialism, colonialism and neo-colonialism."

The postcolonial literature in Africa draws attention towards the

imperial process during colonial and neo^colonial period and tries to

examine its effects. It not only "envisages change in power but demands
7
symbolic overhaul, a reshaping of meanings and contexts. It gives

expression to colonized experience undercutting thematically and

formalizing the discourses which supported the colonization, the myth of

power, the racial colonization and the imagery of subordination."^^

Initially, the term postcolonial had a clearly chronological meaning

of designating the postindependent period. However, from the late 1970s

the term has been used by literary critics to discuss the "various cultural

effects of colonization."" Subsequently, the term has been widely used

for critiquing the postcolonial situation in a society signifying the

political, linguistic and cultural experiences of independent societies

from the former British colonial rule. Thus, the postcolonial discourse is

the discourse of the colonized which, begins with colonization and

doesn't stop when the colonizers go home. It covers "all the culture

affected by Ihe imperial process from the moment of colonization to the

present day.'^^ So, the postcolonial writings can be characterized as:

Writing...grounded in those societies whose subjectivity has been

constituted in part by the subordinating part of European

colonialism, and ... in which the postcolonial is conceived of as a

set of discursive practices involving resistance to colonialism.

colonialist ideologies, and their contemporary forms and legacies. 29

Since postcolonial African literature has arisen out of the

experiences resulting from the contact with the British empire, it can be

said that it is a "writing which reflects in a great variety of ways, the

effects of colonialism."^° The colonial writings have acted as a backdrop

highlighting the particular concerns of postcolonial African writers.

Thus, the literature written in Africa after independence is "deeply

marked by experiences of cultural exclusion and division under empire.

It can be claimed that the colonial encounter and its aftermath [has]

provide[d] a common set of references and problems for post-colonial

[African] cultures."^' The postcolonial African literary writers have made

an endeavour to reappropriate their own culture, language, social order,

value system, religion and economy.

The major cause of agony and disappointment in postcolonial

Africa was foregrounded in politics which, is extensively explored by the

African writers. The revolutionary African critics, Cheikh Anta Diop,

Frantz Fanon, Chinweizu and Ngugi wa Thiong'O for instance, considered

African literature and political discourse as two sides of the same coin.

The Nigerian critic Chinweizu defines African literature as "an

autonomous entity [which] has its own traditions, models and norms. Its

constituency is separate and radically different from that of the European

or other literatures."" The Kenyan writer and critic Ngugi also argued in

favour of literature as a means to convey the writer's message to readers

to make them aware of the socio-political scenario. He avers:

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Europe stole art

treasures from Africa...the treasures of the mind to enrich their

languages and cultures. Africa needs back its economy, its politics,

its culture... its patriotic writers.

 The revolutionary ideological perspective is also asserted by

Cheikh Anta Diop, one of the most important African scholars of the

twentieth century. "Literate African cultures of the Nile Valley had

taught writing to the Mediterranean cultures...had given them their

religions and gods... and philosophy," ^'' argues Diop.

The African culture is similarly defended by Frantz Fanon in his

The Wretched of the Earth where he explores the characteristics of

colonial power and its impact on Africans. Colonialist forces rendered the

Africans "marginalized, dispossessed, [and] subjugated within their own

land."^*^ This marginaliztion of Africans is also pointed out by Edward

Said who posits that there has been a "massive intellectual, moral and

imaginative overhaul and deconstruction of western representation of the

non-western world."^^ Apart from such renowned African critics, quite a

few other postcolonial African writers have also offered a socio-cultural

and political critique of Africa in their fiction.

African postindependent fiction offers a critique of colonial power

by writing back to the empire. "Postcolonial literature...has been driven

by the need to resist colonial intervention...a position reiterated by the

phrase 'writing back',""*^ which has been integral to the notion of

postcolonial African writing. African writers, such as Achebe and Ngugi

wa Thiong'O have not only enriched the African literary discourse but

imparted new insights and dimensions to the postcolonial literary

discourse.

10
 In West Africa, especially Nigeria, one witnesses the greatest

blossoming of African literature in the postcolonial era. "The M'|erian

literary sky can [has] accommodate[d] any [every] type of bird without

their flagging each other down."^^ The Afy°c,an novelists, namely. Kale

Omotoso, Nuruddin Farah, Sang Labou, Tansi, Luandino Vieria;

dramatists like Femi Osofisan; and poets like Mongane Wally Serote and

Oswald Mtshali are among the most representative African writers. The

West African novel struggled to its feet in the half-decade before

independence and reached its peak in the half decade after it. Then it

declined and re-emerged after 1960. Since 1960, in the postcolonial era,

it is defined by the output of the novelists like Chinua Achebe, Wole

Soyinka, Cyprian Ekwensi, Flora Nwapa and John Munoynye etcetera.

The Nigerian novel, in one sense, has assisted in the process of

decolonization for the people who suffered the trauma of foreign conquest

and the imposition of an alien culture. The Nigerian writers have

exquisitely interpreted the contemporary socio-political and cultural

reality in their writings so as to offer an explicit comment on the

inheritance that the society received from colonial period. Their novels

reflect the changes which have taken place in Nigerian life as a result of

what Achebe calls the "chance encounter""*" between Europe and Africa

during the colonial period.

The postindependent Nigerian fiction, which in a larger context

relates to whole Africa, presents the most tragic image of postcolonial

African society. It reflects the deep sense of frustration in different

11
shades, often in the sense of loss of self-identity before independence and

the sense of disillusionment in the postindependent era. It is concerned

with the reality of the postcolonial Nigerian life which, becomes a

microcosm of the macrocosm, i.e. Africa. With independence, the native

colonial leaders were replaced by the native leaders and the new rulers

failed to bring out the fundamental changes in the prevailing system.

The national bourgeoisie who got preoccupied with the scramble

for privileged positions which were vacated by the colonizers,

failed to address themselves to the problems in the economic and

social spheres.""

The new elites brought to power by independence were educated and

trained by the colonialist powers and were unrepresentative of the people

and even acted as unwilling agents for the former colonial rulers.

In Africa, even after independence, nothing has changed and things

are as bad as they were under colonialism. After the period of

colonization, the native rulers rose to power and the postcolonial

Nigerian society is still subject in one way or another to overt or subtle

forms of neocolonial domination, and independence has not solved the

problem. The situation before and after independence remains unaltered.

"After independence the earlier frustration caused by a sense of defeat

made way for frustration resulting from the end of idealistic euphoria."''^

Basil Davidson also points out that "the legacy of the colonial control for

newly independent governments in Africa was not a prosperous colonial

business, but in many ways, a profound colonial crisis."'' After

independence the 'crisis' continued in the country because the new rulers
12
took over the function of colonial rulers in the country. The new leaders

were handed down with a kind of 'dish' on the day of independence,

according to Kwane Nkrumah, who led Ghana into independence. The

'dish' to quote Nkrumah;

Was not an empty dish for it carried the junk and jumble of a

century of colonial muddle and...the new...ministers had to accept

[it] along with the dish...[and] upon its supposedly golden surface

was not the reflection of new ideas and ways of liberation, but

shadows of old ideas and ways of servitude.'*''

After independence, Africa witnessed a large scale imitation of the

ways of their erstwhile white masters by the indigenous elites who were

least concerned with the well-being of their native brothers. This led to

the widespread disappointment among the natives and in Nigeria the

condition was that "postcoloniality" as Kwame Appiah writes, has become

"a condition of pessimism.""*^

In the new political set up the internal conflicts surfaced in

Nigeria. Prior to independence the struggle and conflicts were directed

against the external white enemy whose incursion in the indigenous

native land had disrupted the traditional structure of the society that gave

way to various social and psychological conflicts. In the postindependent

era it became imperative for the indigenous people to fight against the

internal enemy who imitated their white masters and whose desire to be in

power at any cost belied the hopes and aspirations of those who were not

13
in power. All these factors were prominently responsible for widespread

frustration and disappointment in postindependent era.

The African populace in the postindependent phase looked forward

to a bright future with a great hope, to a tomorrow that was free from

oppression and power centred rule. The new African states which came

into being sought for the rebirth of whole Africa. But the "independence

appeared a mockery in many African nation states and all promises

seemed to have turned into a deception.""'' Africa became free on the

visible surface but the struggle continued beneath the surface.

Colonialism in Nigeria therefore has proved, as in the words of Said, to

be "a fate with lasting, indeed grotesquely unfair results."''^ The

postindependent situation no doubt provided an opportunity to make a

new start and forget the painful past of colonial subordination, the

indigenous Nigerians have however, remained unsuccessful in their

efforts to discard it because the colonial condition in Nigeria or Africa as

Memmi writes, "has changed the colonizer and the colonized into an

implacable dependence, molded their respective characters and dictated

their conduct." ''^

The western culture and values exercised such a tremendous

influence on the natives that it created a mental sickness in the socio-

cultural and political dynamics of the society. The whole African culture

has come under the foreign influence and the Africans find it impossible

to escape from it. They are unable to understand that they must try to get

14
out of the hold of imported values in order to stand on their own

foundations.

Postcolonial African writers attacked not only the forces of

imperialism but also the indigenous rulers, through their literary works,

who, they posited, were responsible for the "postindependent betrayal of

hope." In such a situation, to bring a change or solution to the problems

regarding the prevailing socio-political scenario was a great challenge

and the contemporary intellectuals found it impossible to escape under

such conditions of unrest. The "cultural conflict engendered by colonizer-

colonized relation,"^° the prevailing "bicultural situation"^' and its strong

hold on African mind gave the postcolonial African writers a sense of

purpose. They took it as their duty to present a very realistic and

focussed situation of contemporary society so that relevant solutions may

be sorted out. In fact, taking responsibility is one of the most important

features of postcolonial literature so that when the realistic picture of

contemporary society comes before public in fictional terms, it may try

for socio-political regeneration and change in the dynamics of power. The

postindependent African writings are deeply rooted in their culture and

uphold the concept of literature as a part of man's social activity:

Much African writing is still rooted in the concept of literature as a

part of the social activity of man but which is nevertheless

individual in its expression and its choice of area of concern. ^^

African nationalism and modern African literature have followed closely

parallel courses in their search for new grounds for postindependent

15
Africa. The nationalist political discourse has come to form the centre of

postindependent African novel.

The writings of committed, political ideologists and talented

[African] academics were an expression, in ideological terms, of a

new social psychology, a new level of political and ideological

awareness...[against] exploitation."

Since these writers perceive themselves as serving the needs of the

society to which they belong, their writings have a social purpose.

The Nigerian novelists of the African continent were the first to

note that independence did not bring about any fundamental changes in

the lives of the people. "There was no alleviation of poverty, no end to

political repression. There was colossal mismanagement of resources.

The corruption and moral decadence of the leaders and elite was

staggering. Democratic institutions appeared too weak to stand and the

1960s, the period of independence was marked by a series of coup de-

tats."^'* The postindependent Nigerian novelists present a beautiful

critique of this mass disillusionment with socio-political evils in their

writings.

In postindependent Nigerian society, most of the evils are related

to politics. The major focus of contemporary writings therefore is on

politics. It had its origin in the politics of anticolonial struggle and still

bears the marks of that struggle. In the novels of postindependent

Nigerian novelists the contemporary political scene is delineated

extensively along with the other social ills, corruption for instance, which

16
originate from the dirt of politics. Achebe's remarks are noteworthy in

this context:

The real problem with the Igbo since independence is precisely the

absence of the...central leadership.^^

And the "Nigerians are corrupt because the system under which they live

today makes corruption easy and profitable; they will cease to be corrupt

when corruption is made difficult and inconvenient."^^ Achebe reiterates

that "it is the duty of the enlightened citizens to create an atmosphere

conductive to their emergence. If this conscious effort is not made, good

leaders, like good money, will be driven out by bad."^^ It was the

inability or incompetence of the leaders, which resulted in the political

upheavals in the country.

The indigenous rulers behaved much like the foreign rulers, the

erstwhile colonizers, the distance between the native leaders and the

masses has therefore remained the same. The natives felt trapped in the

unhealthy atmosphere of corruption and dictatorship. The following

statement aptly describes the political scene in Nigeria.

Politics are almost as exciting as war and quite as dangerous. In

war you can only be killed once, but in politics - many times.^

Since the politicians were driven only by personal ambition, it gave way

to moral vacuum and other evils related to it.

In the face of the moral anarchy created by the new order, the old

order came to be gradually shattered. The native people apparently looked

forward for modernity, but at heart, they still remained traditional.

17
Contemporary Nigerian literature has most poignantly translated this

transitional phase of society into literary artifacts, more specifically into

fiction. This pathetic condition of society in transition is reflected in

contemporary Nigerian literature. In this transitional phase, the natives

were confronted with the problems of cultural confusion and alienation in

personal, psychological and sociological terms. All this has been

beautifully |)ictured by West African writers, namely, Chinua Achebe,

Wole Soyinka and Cyprian Ekwensi in their novels taken under this

study.

The Nigerian novels written after independence reflect the

changing values of society in transition. The writers have presented a

society that is a living, breathing organism, exercised by small ordinary

fears, hopes, vices and virtues. These people with a confused state of

mind have to cope up with the "troublesome scenario"^^ of the African

politics. The traditionally isolated people suffered from internal conflicts

and the novelists express the crisis faced by these people in their

writings.

Nigerian novelists, who perceive themselves in an educative role,

impart a sensitive interpretation of their own society in their works.

Achebe points out in this context:

The v/riter cannot be excused the task of re-education and

regeneration that must be done. In fact, he should march right in

front. For he is after all...the sensitive point of his community."°

Achebe further posits:

 I believe that the writer should be concerned with the question of

human values. One of the distressing ills which afflicts new nation

is a confusion of values...[which] are relative and in a constant

state of flux.^''

The postindependent Nigerian fiction symbolizes the spirit of

transitional Nigerian society which suffered from the abuse of modernity.

The native culture obtained the shades and colours of Eurocentric culture

adversely affecting the mindset and the world view of the natives.

Urbanization has been one of the prominent features of postcolonial

Nigeria and the Nigerian/African fiction offers a realistic portrait of

contemporary life in Lagos, Nigeria's capital. The postindependent

Nigerian novels "light up the struggle between values that linger longest

in rural areas and the values of modernity."^^ The complexity of modern

Nigerian way of life is extensively presented in Nigerian fiction.

The Nigerians became the victims of western values and way of

living, which the alien educative system inculcated in them. The foreign

values initiated the natives into a world of change and adaptation, which

engendered the dichotomy in tradition and modernity, and rural and urban

segments of society. This resulted in the dislocation of African psyche

and the postcolonial Nigerian novel "explores[d] the hybridity"'''' of

postindependent Nigerians.

The problem of change and hybridity arises because of the impact

of western culture on traditional African culture. Edward Said also posits

that under the legacy of western colonialism, postcolonial African

19
literature has entailed a "hybrid and encumbered element."^'* The Nigerian

novel dramatizes the tensions and conflicts that result from the effect of

socio-political changes on the individual as well as on the community as

a whole.

Modern Nigerian novel thus grows "from hope to betrayal, pain and

disillusionment."^^ Under the weight of materialism, a neo-westernized

society has emerged with so many "shattered worlds and selves."^^

Eurocentric and materialistic life style forces the neo^colonial middle

class Nigerians to be self-centered and corrupt under the borrowed value

system that gave way to a shift from cultural centre to the desire for

material objects. Mentally colonized natives blindly imitated their white

masters. Their thirst for power is manifest in widespread corruption,

bribery and various other social evils. The lure for western education and

white collar jobs results in the rootlessness and alienation of the natives

from their traditional roots.

In nutshell, the postindependent Nigerian society is caught up in a

hybridized situation where tradition and modernity is always in conflict.

The Nigerian writers in their works exhibit a keen awareness of the

natives' dilemma. Their novels present an exquisite portrayal of the social

and political life in Nigeria in the postindependent period. They are

focussing by and large or the contemporary confusion and deterioration

of values. They posit that there is a need for decolonization, which is in

fact a process of re-Africanization. It "is the search or research for

positive African ideas, perspectives...[and] values." ^ , ^ /

u:^^^4=f^y^ 20
Q U ? | Davonac? Qiocae?
 With a view to impart a sharp focus to the topic, "The Nigerian

Novel as a Critique of Postcolonial Nigeria/Africa: A Study of the

Selected Novels of Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka and Cyprian Ekwensi,"

this study has been limited to select novels of these three most

representative Nigerian novelists. These three Nigerian novelists have

presented an exquisite, extensive and realistic critique of postindependent

Nigerian society. Their writings are, in a sense, the product of the

encounter between the new values preached by the western colonial

powers and the re-awakening of the Africans for the glory of their own

past.

All the three writers belong to a developing tradition of modern

African writing in English and "Nigeria with its varied social and
f\ ft

communal patterns provided the right background" for their writings.

They have influenced a new generation of African writers such as,

Zimbabwian Tristi Dangarembga, the Nigerian Ben Okri and many others.

Their significance lies in the fact that their works not only broke new

ground artistically, but also enabled other writers to develop their own

style and perspective.

The novels of these writers relate to the postcolonial Nigerian

society which feel no longer at ease after things had fallen apart. A

common thing among these writers is a common interest in recreating and

reinterpreting the variety of West African life. The fictional world of

their writings is one of change and adaptation. The conflict associated

with the claim of the old, the local or the traditional and the demands of
21
new, foreign or modern is a recurring theme in their fiction. The

Nigerians are caught in the crosscurrents of the neocolonial situation and

they react in different ways to the new situation. Their reactions are a

reflection of what they really are. And these writers present a real picture

of the contemporary Nigerian situation in their fiction.

It was inevitable for these writers to escape from the situation of

socio-political crisis in Nigeria. Achebe rightly points out:

It is clear to me that an African creative writer who tries to avoid

the big social and political issues of the contemporary Africa will

end up being completely irrelevant like that absurd man in the

proverb who leaves his house burning to pursue a rat fleeing from

the Oame.^^

Soynka's imprisonment took place during the national tragedy that

Nigeria had to face during the Biafran war and Achebe and Ekwensi

plunged themselves into the intensity of Biafran politics. So with the

three writers literature beautifully gets merged with the socio-cultural

and political postindependent scenario.

Chinua Achebe, "the father of the African novel,"''° short story

writer, poet, critic, teacher and diplomat, universally regarded as the

progenitor of modern African literature in English, is sure to remain a

part of the canon of modern African literature so long as it requires a

canon. He occupies a singular place among the writers of postcolonial

African fictiion. As a major exponent of the modern African novel.

Achebe is concerned with the two realities of social man - his

22
individuality and the shift in the system of values of his community. This

complex postcolonial Nigerian situation becomes the key concern of

Achebe in his novels.

Achebe was born in Ogidi in Eastern Nigeria on November 16,

1930 to Isuiah Okafer Achebe and Janet Achebe. He was raised in the

large village of Ogidi, one of the first centres of Anglican missionary

work in Eastern Nigeria, and is a graduate of University College, Ibadan.

His parents, though instilled in him many of the values of their traditional

Igbo culture, were devout evangelical Protestants. His childhood,

therefore was marked by the rich ambivalence of a complex inheritance.

These early negotiations of cultural duality have verily enabled him to

develop a necessary distance from the competing and conflicting forces

that had shaped his sense of self and formed his world view - a distance

that he now affirms as a pre-requisite to see the totality of life "steadily

and fully.""

Achebe, working from his mixed heritage of Igbo birth and

Christian upbringing attempts to interpret the Igbo reality and its

relevance to contemporary world and to rehabilitate the African psyche

damaged in its cultural confrontation with the West. Achebe's

achievement has been to turn the colonial legacy into fictional

opportunity. According to Simon Gikwandi:

Achebe's seminal status in the history of African literature lies

precisely in his ability to have realized that the novel provided a

23
 new way of recognizing African cultures, especially in the crucial

juncture of transition from colonialism to national independence.^^

The writer's novels located in postindependent Nigeria can be seen as an

analysis of the conflicting forces, political and social, which determine

the quality of contemporary Nigerian life. His postindependent novels

describe the struggle of the African people to free themselves from

European influences and address Nigeria's internal conflict.

Achebe has painted with remarkable insight the authentic picture of

Nigeria, which represents Africa as a whole. He has justly been called a

chronicler, for he is not dealing simply with the collapse of African

society in the wake of imperialism in the precolonial era but also with its

transformation in postcolonial time. He has examined from inside the

historical evolution of African society at its moments of crisis and the

inevitable tensions attendant upon this process.

The immediate subject of Chinua Achebe's novels is the tragic

consequences of the African encounter with Europe. This is the theme he

has made inimitably his own. His novels deal with the "social and

psychological conflicts created by the incursion of the white man and his

culture into the hitherto self-contained world of African society, and the

subsequent disarray in the African consciousness."^'' His "quest has been

to find in the plight of the Nigerian, the impact of modern ideas."^"^

One of Africa's most outspoken intellectuals, Achebe has been and

continues to be a towering literary figure deeply involved in the political

life of his nation. He has played a pivotal personal role in the emergence
24
of postcolonial Anglophone literature in Nigeria and elsewhere. "He is

devoted to understanding the effect and legacy especially for African, for

black people, for all deprived people of the terrible disaster that

proceeded from Africa's meeting with Europe in the period of high

imperialism in the late nineteenth century."^^ More so, he is devoted to

conveying his understanding of the consequences of this disaster to

Nigerians and to others. Achebe continues to be involved in his quest to

determine a just system of governance for Nigerians and to focus his

thoughts on the role of literature in serving society's needs. He

acknowledges that "the comprehensive goal of developing nation like

Nigeria is of course development or its somewhat better variant,

modernization,"^^ and that literature is central to the quest of achieving

this goal.

Literature...gives a second handle on reality, enabling us to

encounter in the safe manageable dimensions of make-believe...the

yery same threats to integrity that may assail the psyche in real

life, and at the same time providing...a veritable weapon for coping

with these threats whether they are found within our problematic

and incoherent selves or in the world around us.

Thus, Achebe dominates tne African literary scene, occupying a central

place in depicting the contemporary African reality.

The historical, political and social background in its complexity is

important to Achebe. It can also be argued that for Achebe the principal

virtue is to accept stoically what life serves up. But his occupation is also

more than this; i.e. with the plight of the individual in a world
25
characterized by uncertainty, pain and violence. Abiola Irele's comments

in the context of Achebe's writings are significant:

The importance of Chinua Achebe's novels derives not simply from

his theme, but also from his complete presentation of men in

action, in living reaction to their fate as well as from his own

perception that underlies his imaginative world and confers upon it

relevance and truth.^^

Chinua Ahebe in his writings has endeavoured to highlight the

traumatic impact of colonialism on African life and the great damage

caused to the rich African primitive cultural heritage and traditional mode

of living. Achebe's attempt has constantly been to depict the historical

fact of colonization and it's far reaching consequences on the postcolonial

condition and status of his society. This attempt has further inspired an

urgent expression of the need to decolonize which has been described by

Frantz Fanon as "the veritable creation of new men... the thing which has

been colonized becoming man during the same process by which it frees

it^elf."^^

To Achebe, the artist is an integral part of his or her community,

and what he or she creates, therefore must have functional value and

relevance to those individuals who make up the community. He insists

that the artisv has an obligation to remain committed to the well being of

the society. So he often encompasses human experience as embodied in

African society.

26
 Hence, among the West African Anglophone writers who

endeavoured to present an authentic picture of the African milieu along

with its cultural past, its inherent anarchy and its cultural trauma, its

heady independence period from the European powers, the disillusioning

aftermath of postindependent era and the present chaos pervading their

societies, Chinua Achebe is truly outstanding. According to Abdul Jan

Mohamed:

While Chinua Achebe...[was] publishing [his] novels, Africa was

being politically transformed. As a writer Achebe participated in

this political transformation by intervening in and contesting the

hegemonic misrepresentations of Africa in colonial/postcolonial

discourse, and by setting up alternative images of Africa.

The central problem of Achebe's fiction, though initially, was the

creation of order from chaos, with the passage of direct colonial

domination, the problem assumed the new form of how to create a

national order out of the anarchy of nation states created by colonial

maTSters to serve their own long term interests. His second dimension of
81 8?

the problem is exposed in No Longer at Ease, A Man of the People

and Anthills of the Savannah.^''' During Nigeria's tumultuous political

period of the late 1960s and 1970s, Achebe became politically active and

hence these novels address the issue of Nigeria's internal conflict. These

are set in postindependent Africa and describe the struggle of the African

people to free themselves from European influences of various

dimensions - social, psychological, political and cultural.

27
 Achebe's purpose has been to write about his people and for his

people. His novels form a continuum over the Nigerian civilization. "The

mood of anger, frustration and despair which Achebe has demonstrated

since 1965,"^'* characterize his postindependent writings.

No Longer at Ease, Achebe's first novel on modern Nigeria presents

the fragmented state of Nigerian society. Here Achebe uses the fall of one

man, Obi Okonkwo, to depict the birth of a whole new age In Nigerian

life. It treats the dislocation in the African psyche that followed the

disintegration of a situation in which a meaningful social and moral

orientation is made difficult.

Achebe has dealt with the theme of alienation felt by educated

young men in the new nation moving swiftly towards independence. His

theme is the influence of a foreign culture on the life of contemporary

postcolonial Nigerian society and Obi is the representative of this

society. Change, of course, is welcome and it is fascinating for the

promises it holds out and yet the pull of the past is something that no

individual can completely outgrow. The dawn of independence, therefore

found the African tribal society confronted with the twin problems of

tradition and change.

In the novel, Achebe presents, through its hero Obi Okonkwo, a

tragic story of the postcolonial African state. It balances an examination

of Nigerian 'modernity'- the social, political and economic implications

of the accommodation of the colonial rule - with an awareness of the

price Nigerians have paid for their 'modernity'.

28
 A Man of the People examines the question of power and leadership

in the emergent African State. There is no responsible leadership, merely

self-interest. While Achebe's novel set in precolonial society, namely,

Things Fall Apart, shows how a balance between collective religious

observance and personal ambition provides social order, those set in

postcolonial society like A Man of the People offer a vision of how a

culture devoid of religious belief leads to unrestrained acquisitiveness

and unchecked political corruption. The novel ends with military

intervention seen as offering the only possible redemption for a society in

which traditional and imported constitutional methods, both are

ineffective.

Thus, the novel holds a mirror to the rottenness that had overtaken

Nigerian socio-political scene after independence. In this novel Achebe

depicts the problems and predicaments of the people of Nigeria in the

postcolonial political context. It exposes the serious ill consequences of

the African exposure to the West. The novel centres on the theme of

disillusionment in postindependent Nigeria wherein the native African

politicians resort to all kinds of corrupt means for their selfish personal

gains. Once the external enemy is driven out, it becomes imperative for

the newly independent nation to fight the internal foes.

I

Anthills of the Savannah, published twenty years after A Man of

the People, reveals the extent to which any political hope placed in the

hands of the military is misplaced. Like its predecessor, the novel is an

examination of power and of the responsibility of those who possess it.

29
A novel about leadership, it is also an examination of the role of a

writer in a society.

Achehe, in Anthills of the Savannah, critiques the modern post-

independent, postcolonial urban Africa. It presents the general social

and personal turbulence of a late twentieth century African country-

Kangan by fictional name, but certainly Nigeria in fact. The novel

dramatizes the political struggles among Africans, the continuing

western iniluences in the socio-political, economic and social sphere of

the country and ends with the overthrow of the government. The

national bourgeoisie and their specialized elites tend to replace the

colonial force, which ultimately proves to be the exploitative one

replicating the old colonial structures in new terms.

Wole Soyinka, a prodigious talent in African/Nigerian literature,

is among the greatest contemporary African writers. The first African to

win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986, Soyinka is one of the

continent's most imaginative advocates of native culture and of the

humane social order it embodies. Actively committed to social justice,

Soyinka has been an outspoken, daring public figure deeply engaged in

the main political issues of his country and Africa, and he has become a

symbol of humane values throughout the continent. The problems of

Africa, particularly the failures of bureaucrats, authoritarian politicians

and militaiy dictators, "lave concerned Soyinka throughout his career.

And in his novels he examines the role and responsibilities of ihc

intellectuals of his generation.

30
 One of the best known writers of African literature, Wole Soyinka

is nothing if not a versatile playwright and actor, poet and novelist. A

protean figure of bewildering versatility, his creative work ranges over

many modes and genres and his criticism crosses many disciplinary and

cultural boundaries.

Soyinka was born to Yoruba parents Samuel Ayodele and Enila

Soyinka on 13 July 1934 in Ijebu Isara, western Nigeria. He received

his earlier education from Christian mission school at Ibadan and later

from University of Leeds in Great Britain. After having a graduate degree

in English in 1957 and spending eighteen months as a play reader at the

Royal Court Theatre in London, Soyinka returned to Nigeria in 1960, the

year of independence, and immediately plunged into the cultural and

political life of the new nation. The period between independence to the

Nigerian Civil War was a time of deepening political crisis, during which

Soyinka waged a fierce campaign in the Nigerian press against the

political intimidation, repression, censorship, and corruption that

prevailed under the civilian administration of the first Nigerian republic.

Soyinka became a political activist and also suffered imprisonment for

his sturdy independence.

Soyinka refused to "preach the cutting off of any source of

Q C

knowledge: Orient, European, African, Polynesian, or whatever." His

works are artistic hybrids of mixed Yoruba and European parentage,

subtly blending African themes, imagery and performance idioms with

western techniques and stylistic influences.

31
 Having Yoruba background, Soyinka's multifarious identities are,

however, tributaries of a single stream fed by distinctive currents of his

Yoruba culture. "One must never try to rigidify the divisions between one

experience and another,"" he has insisted, for in the Yoruba view of

things "all experiences flow into one another".*^

In 1986 his long literary career including more than twenty stage

and radio plays and revues, four volumes of poetry and three of

autobiographies, two novels, and many critical essays - was crowned

with the Nobel prize in literature, which was not altogether surprising as

he had already won the John Campbell Award for his distinction as a

novelist.

Soyinka's main involvement has been in the theatre, but he is also

credited for many artistic works pertaining to other genres. As Srinivasa

lyenger has rightly pointed out, "an existentialist on his own, Soyinka can

fuse poetry and memory and prophecy, highlighting the plight of modern

man face-to-face with the glamour and glory and plight of the

technological age."*^

Like his compatriots Cyprian Ekwensi, Chinua Achebe,

Bekederemo, and Christopher Okigbo, Wole Soyinka emerged as an

author at a time when there was an unprecedented degree of interest in

African writers and established himself as a dominant figure of his

generation in Nigeria and indeed among Anglophone African authors.

When he received the Nobel prize Soyinka indicated that he "regarded the

32
award as recognition of Africa's contribution to world culture and

devoted part of his address to a political attack on racism, particularly

apartheid."^^

Soyinka has been one of the most outspoken critics of the concept

of negritude, which has been associated with Leopold Senghor. Soyinka

sees that negritude encourages into self-absorption and affirms one of the

central Eurocentric prejudices against Africans, namely, the dichotomy

between European rationalism and African emotionalism.

Soyinka's detractors however, described him basically as an

existentialist without a deep knowledge and appreciation of Yoruba

culture. "He is not a surface skimmer but a diver into the deeps, of the

individual psyche and the social mores,"^° says V. Sivaramakrishnan.

Thus, Soyinka's writings evidence a social conscience. They deal with the

problems that have arisen, as traditional communities have been gradually

transformed by developments in postindependent Nigeria. According to

V. Sivaramakrishanan, Soyinka's quivering "intellectual antenna are

highly sensitive to the stink of corruption in the wells of power." His

writings are committed to the debunking of hypocrisy and humbug, the

exposure of the manipulative abuse and misuse of power.

Wole Soyinka is a very good example of a writer who has

effectively bridged two cultures - the Yoruba culture of Africa which

resents the ancient moorings of a very rich tribal past and the modern

western urban culture. Soyinka is not only an inheritor of the Yoruba

heritage but is one who has made a profound study of his literary
33
blossoms. He has been able to capture global attention to the modern

African literature with this collective tradition which he has always

expressed for the health and vitality of the literary phenomenon in

postindependent or postcolonial Africa.

Soyinka has written powerfully against the tendency of modern

industrial civilization to cut the man off from his links with nature and

with those deep parts of his self which are rooted in his natural condition.

Hence, one of the major themes of Soyinka's writings is the quest for

wholeness, the search for connections between all areas of life.

The Interpreters, Soyinka's first novel focuses on five recently

returned university graduates to the independent Nigeria and their

corporate revolt against brazen corruption, dishonesty of the press, and

academic hypocrisy - a revolt, however, that is soon harmlessly defected

into so many private self-gratifying quests and elitist cults of sensibility

and taste. The novel focuses on the class of intellectuals whose

preoccupations are a kind of hedonistic indulgence in self-questioning.

This is a significant text that speaks of the supreme responsibilities of the

intellectuals in postindependent Africa.

Cyprian Ekwensi is one of Nigeria's best known and most popular

writers who belong to the first wave of modern Nigerian writers. Deeply

concerned with the quality of modern Nigerian life, specifically with the

ways in which traditional values and institutions were redefined as a

result of the presence of Europeans in West Africa during the colonial

period, his novels portray the conflicts which the colonial presence
34
promoted in Nigeria and the resultant cultural, social and political

changes.

Cyprian Ekwensi has been writing fiction since the end of world

war II. An Igbo born on 26 September 1921 in Mina, Northern Nigeria,

he was educated in the northern and western regions of Nigeria and in

England. At the end of his formal education, he took up full time

employment in the federal civil service in Lagos, first as head in the

Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation and from 1961 as Director of

Information, in the Federal Ministry of Information. Consequently,

Ekwensi did not become immersed in Igbo culture until 1966, when a

floundering government was overthrown by an Igbo led military coup d'

etat. This event provoked a Hausa-Fulani counter coup and massacre of

eastern Nigerians, mainly Igbo, and led to the secession of the eastern

Region as the ensuing civil war, which ended in Biafra's defeat.

Ekwensi's writing career manifests the two phases, the pre and post

Biafra development seen in the work of many major Igbo authors who

started writing in the mid of century, including Chinua Achebe.

From the beginning of his career, Ekwensi had very clear ideas

about the nature of African literature and his own writing. He defines

African literature as based on African character, psychology, and living

heritage for the reinstatement of the dignity and pride which the black

man lost through slavery. According to Lee Nicholas, he had achieved

his ambition:

35
 To be a populist writer...[his] audience consists of the ordinary

working man... [he] did not pretend to aim at any intellectuals...

who are not really living their life for the people...[he

wrote] about life and death, truth and fiction, justice and injustice,

corruption and the life and everyone underscores these

1 93
elements.

Cyprian Ekwensi is a prolific writer to date. He has published

seven full-length novels, three novellas, twelve children's books, three

collections of short stories, and numerous articles and stories that have

appeared in newspapers and magazines throughout the English speaking

world. His works have been translated into several languages and he

himself has toured Africa, Europe and America extensively. He is

certainly one of the best-known African writers, and in 1968 was awarded

the Dog Hammarskjold International Prize in literature.

A popular novelist, Ekwensi understands his audience. "I don't

regard myself as one of the sacred writers, writing for some audience

locked up in the higher seats of learning."^"* He has described his

audience as consisting of "the ordinary working man... the masses." ^

He has been called an African Defoe, the chronicler of contemporary

African city life, but he objects to being stereotyped exclusively as an

urban writer. Although many of his novels are set in the city, Ekwensi

defines himiself as a "national novelist, because I know Nigeria

backwards. 1 have driven throughout the length and breadth of this

country. There is no part of Nigeria I have not been to." ^

36
 Ekwensi, though writes in a popular style and does not hesitate to

entertain his readers with vivid, often titillating descriptions of low life

in West Africa, he weaves deeply serious topics into his novels. These are

concerned about the loss of moral and human values in today's money

mad Africa, concern about political violence and instability, and, more

recently, concern about the effects of the civil war on people's day-to-day

lives. Writing for Ekwensi is a way to mirror society and to expose social

ills:

Directly or indirectly the writer in today's Africa must be a

committed writer. He must be committed to truth. He must be

committed to the exposure of the ills of the society. And he must be

committed to pointing the direction towards the future, as he

97
understands it

As a populist writer, Ekwensi prides himself on understanding the taste

and psychology of his audience:

The Nigerians...like to hear scandalous things about people...to see

how all these rich men are coming to a soggy end...to see how we

can acquire the wealth to build twenty story buildings...to see those

who have twenty story buildings being impeached for getting their

wealth in a corrupt way...its all part of the ebullience of life...[and]

the joy of living in the Africa of today.^^

One must consider Ekwensi in terms of what he creates and what he

attempts, and from that standpoint there are many important and

influential qualities to be found in his work. Ekwensi creates the image of

37
a particular kind of social truth; presenting his morality through the

mirror of his novels.

Ekwensi remains an important figure in African writing because his

concerns are so determinedly with modern Nigeria; with the tension of

politics in the crowded new cities. He does not insulate himself in the

past problems of the colonial era, but with postindependent Lagos, its

slums and violence. He is most successful in relating his Lagos characters

to their physical and social environment. He knows the Lagos of the

underworld and the slums, better than any other Nigerian writer. He has

succeeded in relating his characters' social situation to their physical

environment. His writings reveal his heightened awareness of

sociological realities. But Ekwensi's preoccupation with the social

realities of the city does not prevent him from creating some interesting

characters and exploring some significant relationships, especially

between men and women.

The contemporary African fiction definitely bears the mark of

Ekwensi's decisive influence. Ekwensi's forte is the analysis of the social

realities in the new African urban aggregations, a major preoccupation of

contemporary African novelists. He has successfully depicted the

postcolonial urban Africa, with its night clubs, dance halls, money

minded businessmen, political sycophants, and prostitutes. And this urban

reality, undoubtedly is a product of colonial legacy.

Ekwensi is a serious novelist whose writing reflects his serious

concerns with some of the most pressing problems facing modern Nigeria.
38
Ekwensi's fiction represents, almost exclusively, an attempt to come to

terms with the chaotic formlessness and persistent flux of the modern

Nigerian city - that is, with Lagos.

Ekwensi has set a new trend in the African novel by writing about

the immediate, the topical, and about the tenor of life in a city without

trying to suggest that the city is necessarily the product of a colonial

experience. By doing so, he has, in effect, provided the anatomy of a

new urban novel of Africa and "executed a more decisive influence

on the contemporary African novel than Chinua Achebe."^''

Thus, Ekwensi is mainly concerned with depicting such changing

values in a city as are the direct or indirect result of the exploitative

colonial system and antithetical to the values associated with a

traditional African village. Ekwensi's Jagua Nana,^^^ for example,

delineates the most vital aspects of the city as an urban phenomenon,

which affect human lives. Ekwensi does have genuine insight into the

complexity of problems which attend modern urban living in Nigeria.

Through a deliberately realistic approach, in his novels, Ekwensi "seeks

to lay bare and call attention to various evils in society - to corruption in

high places and low, in politics, government administration; to debased

morality both public and private,"'°' comments Douglas Killam. Hence,

the obvious polemical ana reformatory purposes dominate in his novels.

The time when other writers were busy celebrating the beauty of

the past, Ekwensi recognized the ugliness of the African present. His

journalistic training and instinct for the newsworthy have enhanced his
39
ability to identify as problems what most people see merely as incidents.

Ekwensi sees city as having terribly corrupting influence. The emergence

of a client-centered market economy, a corresponding decay of the

traditional agrarian economy, and the concentration of development

projects in emerging urban centers combined to provoke a massive

population shift from villages to urban areas, with a consequent outbreak

of juvenile delinquency, prostitution, syndicated crime, environmental

squalor, political chicanery, and violence. Ekwensi's city, which is

usually Lagos, is remarkable for lacking a cultural identity or background

against which the dynamics of transition can be measured.

Jagua Nana, Ekwensi's second full length novel and probably his

best, offers a view of uroanized Nigerian life. Here Ekwensi evokes a

convincing portrayal of the variety of Lagosian life - its poverty and

squalor, existing side by side with glamour and riches; its pimps,

prostitutes and politicians and their greed and lust. This is not every

Nigerian's Lagos but "everybody will come into contact with this aspect

of the city's life at some time or other - people from the most diverse

walks of life form an integral part of it,"'°^ as Ulli Beier observes.

In the presentation of Jagua's character Ekwensi offers a serious social

criticism of postcolonial forces giving rise to urbanization, political

violence, corruption and disillusionment.

The story of Jagua Nana, an ageing high-lifer, is a brilliant

evocation of the chaos and intensity of modern life in Lagos. Ekwensi's

creation of this memorable shifting landscape of deceit, pleasure and

40
despair is marvelous in focussing the urban atmosphere. As modern

Nigeria began to spawn its sprawling cities, Ekwensi was among the first

to recognize their importance. In Jagua Nana, considered by many as his

best work, he portrays a confusing new world in which Freddy's desire for

education, or the attractions of village life fade before Jagua's

seductive, ambitious presence. This account of the seamy side of Lagos,

and of Jagua's restless, doomed refusal to grow old, is a classic of

African fiction and one of the first in a long line of West African novels

about the city.

Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka and Cyprian Ekwensi are among the

most representative writers and their fiction has been universally

acclaimed for offering a critique of the postcolonial situation in Africa.

The following chapters are devoted to the study of the select novels of

these writers with a focus on the postcolonial reality.

41
 Notes and References

G. D. Killam, ed., introduction, Studies in African

Literature: Afri can Writers and African Writing (London: Heinemann
1973) xii.

'Frantz Fanon quoted in Robert J. C. Young,

Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction (N. P.: Blackwell
Publishers, 2001) 279.

•K. R. Srinivasa lyenger, "Contemporary African Literature,"

Indian Literature, vol.xvii, no.2 (January-July, 1978) 279.

Mala Pandurang, Postcolonial African Fiction: The Crisis of

Consciousness (Delhi: Pencraft International, 1997) 28.

^Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (1958; London:

Heinemann, 1996).

^Quoted in A. K. Sinha, "The Commonwealth Writer and His

Obligation: A Study of Indian and African Fiction," Postcolonial
Discourse: A Study of Contemporary Literature, ed., R. K. Dhawan
(New Delhi: Prestige, 1997) 86.

^Ngugi wa Thiong'O, "Satire in Nigeria," quoted in A. K.

Sinha, "The Commonwealth Writer and His Obligation: A Study of
Indian and African Fiction," 62.

*V. Sivaramakrishnan, introduction, The African Mind: A

Literary Perspective (Bombay: Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan, 1990) xv.

'Bruce King, "Varieties of African Literature," The Literary

Half-Yearly, vol. xix, no. 1 (1978): 2.

'"Satyanarain Singh, "Towards a New African Aesthetic: A

Note on Myth and History in Achebe and Soyinka," Commonwealth
Literature: Themes and Techniques, ed., P. K. Rajan et al. (New Delhi:
Ajanta publications, 1993) 133.

" M a l a Pandurang, Postcolonial African Fiction: The Crisis

of Consciousness, 28.

'"Sylvain, Bembo, The Dark Room, quoted in K. R. Srinivasa

lyenger, "Contemporary African Literature," Indian Literature, vol.
xvii, no. 2 (Jan-July, 1974): 279.

42
 •'Om P. Juneja, "The Colonial Hybrid: Identity and
Alienation," Postcolonial Novel: Narratives of Colonial Consciousness
(New Delhi: Creative Books, 1995) 37.

Ramesh K. Srivastava, ed., Colonial Consciousness

(Jalandhar; ABS Publications, 1991) 3.

•'Jan Mohamed, quoted in Florence Stratton, introduction,

Contemporary African Literature and the Politics of Gender (New
York: Routledge, 1994) 7.

'"S. A. Khayyoom, "Myth and Symbolism in the Novels of

Chinua Achebe," Indian Response to African Writing, ed., A.
Ramakrishna Rao (New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1993) 7 1 .

Achebe, quoted in Bruce King, Literatures of the World in

English (New York: Routledge, 1974) 2.
11!
D. Maya, preface. Narrating Colonialism (New Delhi:
Prestige, 1997) 11.

' ' H . Kalpana, Postcolonial Theory and Literature, ed., P.

Mallikarjuna Rao, et al (N. P.: Atlanta Publishers, 2003) 228.

^"Erna Broadber, Myal (London: New Beacon, 1985) 35.

^'Saswat S. Das, "The Postcolonial Project: Novel as

History," Postcolonial Empire: Continuity of Colonial Discourse (New
Delhi: Universal Publications, 2001) 125.

^•"Albert Memmi, The Colonizer and the Colonized (New

York: Orion Press, 1965).

^'Bill Ashcroft, et al.. The Empire Writes Back (London:

Routledge, 1989) 2.

^'Diana Brydon, ed., introduction, Postcolonialism, vol.i

(London: Routledge, 2000) 7.

^'Edward Kamau Brathwaite, History of the Voice (London:

New Beacon, 1984) 5.

^^Elleke Boehmer, introduction, Colonial and Postcolonial

Literature (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1995) 3.

^^Bill Ashcroft, introduction, Post-Colonial Transformation

(London: Routledge, 2001) 9.

^^Diana Brydon, introduction, Postcolonialism, 9.

43
 Ian Adam and Helen Tiffin, eds.. Past the Last Post:
Theorizing Post Colonialism and Post Modernism (Hemstead:
Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991) 2.

Christopher O' Reilly, introduction, Postcolonial Literature

(Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2001) 6.

•••'Stephen Slemon, "Post-Colonial Allegory of the

Transformation of History," Journal of Commonwealth Literature, vol.
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44
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^'-,18.

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^" — , 38.

^ • ' - , 2.

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45
 ^"Chinua Achebe, "The Novelist as Teacher," New Statesman
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46
 Chinua Achebe, Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays
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7R

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70

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Q T

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Q A

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*'• — , 42.

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' ' - , 51.

47
 '^ Wole Soyinka, The Interpreters (1965; Flamingo: Fontana
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^ ^ - , 43.

" - , 44.

^ « - , 46.

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48