The Role of the Surreal in Postcolonial African Writing

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" The Role of the Surreal in Postcolonial African Writing "
Joshua Isaac Kumwenda

Document Type	:	AL
Record Number	:	1076765
Doc. No	:	LA120394
Call No	:	‭10.1163/18757421-05001009‬
Language of Document	:	English
Main Entry	:	Joshua Isaac Kumwenda
Title & Author	:	The Role of the Surreal in Postcolonial African Writing [Article]\ Joshua Isaac Kumwenda
Publication Statement	:	Leiden: Brill
Title of Periodical	:	Matatu
Date	:	2018
Volume/ Issue Number	:	50/1
Page No	:	152–168
Abstract	:	Creating a situation that is beyond the ordinary stems from the author’s desire to create utopia amidst the engulfing dystopia and the search for relevant aesthetics to satisfy that desire. It therefore requires the reader to unravel the illogical through which such texts create their meanings and assert their ideologies. Using the case of Legson Kayira’s writing, this paper observes that the surreal takes many dimensions and is the main vehicle for expressing ideology among many African writers in the sense that the dominant narratives and counter-narratives of the texts are aligned with it. As such, whether a text is wholly surrealist or merely informed by the surrealist mode of expression, there is a particular logic that is shrouded in the illogical, the extraordinary and the impractical. I draw on Legson Kayira’s Jingala (1967) and The Detainee (1974) to show how these texts rely on the surreal as the main vehicle for interrogating the postcolonial African reality and positing the author’s ideology.
Descriptor	:	aesthetics
Descriptor	:	African Studies
Descriptor	:	Comparative Studies World Literature
Descriptor	:	counter-narrative
Descriptor	:	Criticism Theory
Descriptor	:	Cultural History
Descriptor	:	dystopia
Descriptor	:	ideology
Descriptor	:	Literature Culture
Descriptor	:	Literature and Cultural Studies
Descriptor	:	Postcolonial Literature Culture
Descriptor	:	surrealism
Descriptor	:	ubuntu
Descriptor	:	utopia
Location & Call number	:	‭10.1163/18757421-05001009‬