Anxiety and influence in Nuruddin Farah and younger Somali writers

During his exile, Nuruddin Farah believed that he would return to a democratic Somalia once Muhammed Siyad Barre had been removed from power. However, this vision was lost when civil war followed the dictator’s fall. Since then, Farah has made several return visits to Somalia. He claims in interviews and articles that he continues to care about Somalia whereas others have abandoned the country. The emotional engagement that Farah shows in his book on Somali refugees, Yesterday, Tomorrow: Voices from the Somali Diaspora emerges again in his Past Imperfect trilogy. This can be seen in the ways in which older Somali characters interact with a younger generation, seeking to instruct, develop and protect them. This shows a certain anxiety about influence. It is as if Farah is attempting to re-assert his long-held position as the pre-eminent author and interpreter of Somalia and the Somali diaspora during a period in which there has been a proliferation of literary writing by younger Somalis. This essay examines Farah’s trajectory from exile to cosmopolitan writer and his anxiety in the Past Imperfect trilogy and other writing. It further considers whether there are constructive linkages between Farah’s work and that of selected younger Somali writers.&nbsp

Revisiones históricas en femenino: Indigo, de Marina Warner

Resumen La re-naracción que Indigo plantea respecto de a obra de Shapeskeare The Tempest (1611) se sitúa en al revalidación de la temprana narrativa del descubrimiento que encarna el relato de viajes del siglo XVII

The Story of Seretse and Ruth: A Southern African foundational fiction

This article is centred on Wilf Mbanga and Trish Mbanga's Seretse and Ruth (2005), a Zimbabwean-authored, fictionalised biography of the first President of Botswana, Seretse Khama and his British wife, Ruth Williams. In the article, analysis of Seretse and Ruth is placed within the context of a resurgence of international interest both in Botswana as a society and in the marriage of the Khamas. The aims and methodology of Mbanga and Mbanga are compared to those of Michael Dutfield, the author of their main secondary source A Marriage of Inconvenience (1990). The ambiguity in the “play” on cultural and racial difference in Seretse and Ruth is discussed in an analysis of the biography's representation of Ruth and Seretse's courtship and the antagonism between Ruth and Seretse's uncle, Tshekedi. Drawing on the work of Doris Sommer (1993) on the romance as foundational fiction in nineteenth-century Latin American writing, the paper argues that Seretse and Ruth presents the story of the Khamas as a foundational fiction in which “starcrossed lovers” from different races and regions eventually unite the new nation of Botswana. Moreover, the retelling of this story has resonances in contemporary southern African politics and culture. Seretse and Ruth contributes to the “myth” of Botswana as a successful, harmonious society that can be contrasted with the divided society of neighbouring Zimbabwe. The paper concludes that Seretse and Ruth presents a way of imagining a foundational fiction for Zimbabwe based on consensus rather than exclusion

Gender, history and trauma in Zimbabwean and other African literatures

Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this research explores Zimbabwean literary and other cultural texts within the broader context of the construction of identities and the politics of inclusion and exclusion in nationalist and oppositional discourses. It also analyzes two texts by major non-Zimbabwean African writers to examine the thematic links between Zimbabwean and other African writing. Through combining historical, anthropological and political approaches with postcolonial, postmodern and feminist critical theories, the thesis explores the ways in which African writing and performance represent alternative histories to official versions of the nation. It further investigates questions of gender and their significance in nationalist discourses and shows how writing on war, trauma and healing informs and develops readers’ understanding of the relationship of the past to the present. Considered together as a coherent body of work, the published items submitted in this thesis explore how Zimbabwean and other African writers, through re-visioning history and writing from oppositional or marginal positions, intervene in political debates and suggest new transformative ways of constructing and negotiating identities in postcolonial societies