Resistance and Consciousness in Kenya and South Africa: Subalternity and Representation in the Novels of Ngugi Wa Thiong'o and Alex La GumaP. Lang, 2002 - 391 pages This study undertakes an analysis of the models of response (resistance/non-agency) to colonial, apartheid and post-colonial imposition which are posited in the novels of the Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong'o and the South African writer Alex La Guma. Such a focus involves related issues such as the relationship between the consciousness level of the subaltern and his/her capacity for resistance, and how oppression affects self-construction and consciousness. Since the book deals with resistance and consciousness within the textual space of the novels, the central issue raised in the study is explored around questions of representation. The study places the texts in the historical and political context of colonial and post-colonial Kenya and apartheid South Africa. The study analyses the development of the two authors' literary careers and distinguishes between two phases in the two authors' fiction, viz. their «counter-hegemonic» and their «combat» fiction. While the counter-hegemonic fiction resists essentialist representation of subaltern consciousness and rejects an essentialist view of resistance as an obvious, non-contradictory act, the study claims that their combat literature is a more direct, uncompromising and often one-dimensional reaction and struggle against the oppressor. |
Contents
Acknowledgements | 11 |
A Grain of Wheat | 77 |
A transitional case | 127 |
Copyright | |
9 other sections not shown
Common terms and phrases
African Literature agency Alex La Guma ambiguous ambivalence analysis anti-colonial apartheid apartheid regime Balutansky Beukes binarism Boer Butcherbird Cape Flats Cape Town Charlie colonial discourse colonialist discourse coloured combat fiction combat literature complex conscientisation consciousness context counter-hegemonic critical Cross cultural Devil District Six dominant exploitation explores exposes Fanon focuses Gatuiria Gikandi Gikonyo Gikuyu Grain of Wheat Guma's hegemonic Heinemann identity ideological indigenous insistence interpellations JanMohamed Kenya Kenyatta Kihika liberation struggle linked literary London Manichean Matigari Mau Mau Maughan-Brown Michael Adonis Mugo Mugo's Muturi Nairobi narrative nationalist neo-colonial Ngugi wa Thiong'o Night novel oppressed peasants political position post-colonial post-modern potential problematic queries question racial reality representation resistance literature resistance movement revolutionary role seems sense situation social society South Africa subaltern terrain textual Thabai Threefold Cord transcends underlines University Press utopia vision Walk Wariinga Western Cape Whereas writing York