THE POSTCOLONIAL DIMENSIONS OF THE SELECTED WORKS OF AYI KWEI ARMAH AND BEN OKRI

THE POSTCOLONIAL DIMENSIONS OF THE SELECTED WORKS OF AYI KWEI ARMAH AND BEN OKRI

Abstract:

Postcolonial literature, which made its strong impact on the literary world since Edward Said‟s Orientalism (1979) has found a convenient space in the critical analysis evaluation of African Literature because it is the thematic superstructure of the literature of the Third World and has come to widen the scope of analyzing the literary contribution of the formerly colonized nations to the world of letters. In particular it has provided the voice for these nations to express their shared experience and re-examine their relationship with the former colonizers. In this regard, African authors have kept the pace with the rest of the world as they have become unfettered and free to tell their story from their own perspective, based on the colonial experience and ironically achieving this by exploiting the novel form, usually considered to be a genre peculiar to the West. The selected authors for this study Ayi Kwei Armah and Ben Okri are among those who have successfully done this and in the process they have not only respectively re-focused attention on the glory of pre-colonial Africa but have also sustained the tradition of modern African writers of keeping the searchlight on the post-independence political elite. Also in the same tradition, the authors have made very strong social and political messages that touch on the very lives of the millions of Africa‟s underprivileged. Armah goes beyond the continent when his theme is focused around race and pan-Africanism which are issues well within the ambit of postcolonialism. In this study, the two selected novels of Armah‟s Why Are We So Blest? (1972) and Two Thousand Seasons (1979) are analysed against postcolonial issues of race and identity; while Okri‟s The Famished Road (1991) and Stars of the New Curfew (1989) provide the background against which urbanization and identity are examined. These issues generally overlap, confirming the researcher‟s conviction that Bhabha‟s theories on ambivalence and hybridity have become inescapable legacies of postcolonialism. These theories were also reference points in the analyses, in spite of Armah‟s fierce advocacy for Pan-Africanism and what can be perceived as this anti-racism. Okri‟s portrayal of characters and environments confirm the rootlessness of individuals and the dilemma of urbanization. The three stories selected from Okri‟s Stars of the New Curfew possess those characteristics of postcolonial experience which makes them suitable for analysis in their down – to – earthness.

THE POSTCOLONIAL DIMENSIONS OF THE SELECTED WORKS OF AYI KWEI ARMAH AND BEN OKRI