Literature Journal 1

Reference:
Shang, Ndi Gilbert. 2016. A question of the body: Colonial legacies and postcolonial imaginaries of power in African literary texts. International Journal of English and Literature. September. Vol.7(9), pp. 143-151

Review:

The analyses in this study are anchored on postcolonial theory with regard to issues such as power, race, centre/margin and decolonisation while the various notions of corporeality discussed here are informed by the works of theorists like Friedrich Nietzsche et all. This is carried out through a variety of narrative structures, one of the most effective of which is the postcolonial dictatorship novel form. thus in reaction to the myth of the potentate‟s body that sets itself above the citizenry that postcolonial dictatorship novels attempt to inspire alternative epistemological relationship of bodies based on dignity and mutual respect. Internalisation did not however exclude the subject‟s tactics of subversion and contestation as can be seen from the proliferation of legend, myths, folklore, fables, popular ballads, proverbs, anecdotes, idioms, rumours, etc. that characterise subject representation of colonial encounters in Africa. The colonial encounter, the fate of colonizer/colonized bodies and experiences of dispossession became embedded in riddles, proverbs and folktales, precursors of postcolonial forms of creative writing. In most cases, material and spiritual dis-possessions were inseparable as represented in narratives that bring to bear different perceptions of the bodies of the self and other.

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Literature Journal 1