This book investigates the many ways in which contemporary African
fiction has reflected on themes of responsibility and complicity
during the postcolonial period. Covering the authors Ayi Kwei
Armah, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nuruddin Farah, Michiel Heyns, and J. M.
Coetzee, the book places each writer’s novels in their cultural
and literary context in order to investigate similarities and
differences between fictional approaches to individual complicity
in politically unstable situations. In doing so, the study focuses
on these texts’ representations of discomforting experiences of
being implicated in harm done to others in order to show that it is
precisely during times of political crisis that questions of moral
responsibility and implicatedness in compromised conduct become
more pronounced. The study also challenges longstanding western
amnesia concerning responsibility for historical and present-day
violence in African countries and juxtaposes this denial of
responsibility with the western literary readership’s consumption
of narratives of African “suffering.” The study instead
proposes new reading habits based on an awareness of readerly
complicity and responsibility. Drawing insights from across
political philosophy and literary theory, this book will be of
interest to researchers of African literature, postcolonial
studies, and peace and conflict studies.
General
Imprint: |
Routledge
|
Country of origin: |
United Kingdom |
Series: |
African Governance |
Release date: |
May 2023 |
Authors: |
Minna Johanna Niemi
|
Dimensions: |
234 x 156mm (L x W) |
Pages: |
204 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-367-76665-8 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
0-367-76665-5 |
Barcode: |
9780367766658 |
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