Intertextuality in Contemporary African Literature: Looking Inward

249 Pages·2011·0.74 MB·English

by  Ode Ogede

INTERTEXTUALITY
IN CONTEMPORARY
AFRICAN LITERATURE
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INTERTEXTUALITY
IN CONTEMPORARY
AFRICAN LITERATURE
Looking Inward
ODE OGEDE
LEXINGTON BOOKS
Lanham (cid:129) Boulder (cid:129) New York (cid:129) Toronto (cid:129) Plymouth, UK
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Published by Lexington Books
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Copyright © 2011 by Lexington Books
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by
any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval
systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer
who may quote passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ogede, Ode.
Intertextuality in contemporary African literature : looking inward / Ode
Ogede.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7391-6446-4 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-7391-6448-8
(ebook)
1. African literature—20th century—History and criticism. 2. Intertextuality. I.
Title.
PL8010.O328 2011
809.896—dc22 2011018756
™
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
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This book is affectionately dedicated to the memory of
my brother Goddy (1958–2009).
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CONTENTS
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xvii
1 When an Elephant Rustles the Bush . . . 1
2 Is a Picture Still Worth a Thousand Words? From
Documentary to Investigative Realism: Cyprian Ekwensi’s
Jagua Nana and Flora Nwapa’s One Is Enough 15
3 Lampoon, or the Power of Savage Satire, and the Visual
Object of Distaste: Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People
and Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Beautyful Ones Are Not
Yet Born 69
4 On the Politics of Love: Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease
and Bessie Head’s Maru 123
5 Masking the Infrastuctural Frame: Christopher Okigbo and
His Acolytes—Labyrinths’ Aural and Thematic Echoes in
Okinba Launko’s Minted Coins and Chimalum
Nwankwo’s The Heart in the Womb 145
Conclusion C oming Out of Shadow: Eye on the Tradition,
Looking for Consequence 201
Bibliography 213
Index 221
About the Author 229
vii
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PREFACE
T
he subject of this book is the persistent and widespread role of local
literary precedent in the development of African writing. This study’s
working hypothesis is that an elucidation of the enlivening sense of their
antecedents that can be found in many works by African authors is sure to
spark interest in and garner appreciation for Africa’s creative writing con-
sidered as a whole. All texts have forebears, but it is especially enlightening
to be told that some African writers read other African writers because the
fact that they have often found a strong impetus to work through their own
ideas with each other is seldom recognized. Notwithstanding the prepon-
derance of the evidence about the considerable cultural circulation among
them, while some critics continue to express lingering doubts on the sub-
ject of intra-African author dialogues, others conveniently ignore it: both
parties perpetuate the tacit assumption that African authors only engage
with the Western canon.1 Delineating unexplored connections in the work
of the dialogic imagination in Africa provides a deeper insight into African
authorship, for, when the abundant but elusive methods entangled in their
compositional acts are carefully and coherently explicated we gain clarity
on the terms and tactics through which African writers interrogate and re-
vise one another’s works and begin to experience the full range and quality
of creative inventiveness in Africa. Placing a special emphasis on this hidden
dynamic—on how African writers alter one another’s styles while draw-
ing from older texts to fashion new ones—this study therefore concerns
itself with the complex aesthetic strategems adopted in the theft of creative
thunder: the play of tropes, images, subject matter, narrative ruses, and
performative conventions that are for the most part intrinsic aspects of fresh
composition, the substance rather than the accident of artistic construction.
ix
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