African Culturalist Subversion of Western Otherizing Logic in Decolonising the Mind: Ngugi’s Indigenization Project

Document Type : Original Article

Author

English Department, Felix Houphouet-Boigny University, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa

Abstract

When discussing African literature, it becomes impossible to bypass the issue of language, and more importantly African native languages, which seem to be close to quasi-inexistent when it comes to writing in them. In fact, most African written literature has come to life using the languages of the European languages imposed by force and at times subtly by the colonizers. In his book groundbreaking Decolonising the Mind, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, the Kenyan writer and critic, addresses the issue by attacking these European languages in practice in both African nation-states and literature, and what the said languages represent ideologically and hegemonically when in use in Africa. In order to have a truly African literature, i.e. one utterly independent from the former colonial influences, Ngugi proposes a literature in African in African indigenous languages. How does he go about putting this in practice? Does such a proposition fit well in our days and age? These are the questions, among others, this paper seeks to address.

Keywords: Africa, literature, indigenous, Europe, West, Other, subversion, culture, language

Keywords

References

Amuta, Chidi. The Theory of African Literature: Implications for Practical Criticism. London: Zed Books Ltd, 1989.
Ashcroft, Bill. Postcolonial Transformation. New York: Routledge, 2001.
Cabral, Amilcar. Return to the Source. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1973.
Bauman. Morality and Immortality and Other Life Strategies. Cambridge, Polity Press, 1992: 5-6.
Bauman, Zygmunt. Culture as Praxis. London: Sage Publications, 1999.
Dickinson, Helen. “Wolves of the Atlantic.” World Literature Today (Sept.-Oct 2010) 38-39.
Diop, Cheikh Anta, (1974). Black Africa: The Economic and Cultural Basis for a Federal State with an Interview by Carlos Moore, Trans. Harold Salemson. Westport: Lawrence Hill & Co, 1978.
Diop, Cheikh Anta. Nations nègres et culture. Tome 2. Paris : Présence africaine, 1979.
Djian, Jean-Michel. “Confidences de Fatou Diome : Entretien” Jeune Afrique No 2461 (9-15 March 2008) : 70.
Egejuru, Phanuel Akubueze. Towards African Literary Independence: A Dialogue with Contemporary African Writers. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1980.
Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Trans.Constance Carrington. New York: Grove press, 1963.
Fleras, Augie. “Racializing Culture/ Culturalizing Race: Multicultural Racism in a Multicultural Canada” In Racism, Eh?: A Critical Inter-Disciplinary Anthology of Race and Racism in Canada.  Camille A. Nelson and Charmaine A. Nelson (Eds.). Toronto: Captus Press, 2004: 430-43.
Hitchcock, Peter. Dialogics of the Oppressed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993.
Said, Edward. “The Public Role of Writers and Intellectuals,” The Nation, de septembre 2001 available at <http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010917/essay>. Accessed on May 23rd 2014.
Ong, J. Walter. Orality and Literatcy: The Technologizing of the World. London: Routeldge, 2002.
Ong, J. Walter. “Before Textuality: Orality and Interpretation” Oral Tradition, 3/3 (1988): 259-269.
Locke, Alain. “The New Negro.” In Within the Circle: An Anthology of African American Literary Criticism from the Harlem Renaissance to the Present. Ed. Angelyn. Mitchell. Durham: Duke University Press, 1994: 21-31.
Ngugi, Wa Thiong’O, Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of language in African Literature. London: James Carrey, 1986.
Ngugi, Wa Thiong’O. Globalectics: Theory and the Politics of Knowing. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012.
N’gugi, Wa Thiong’O, Moving the Center: The Struggle for Cultural Freedoms. London: James Currey, 1993.
Ngugi, Wa Thiong’O, Writers in Politics: Essays. Nairobi: Heinemann, 1981.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. La Responsabilité de l’écrivain. Lagrasse: Editions Verdier, 1998.
Steiner, George, After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation, New York &London, Oxford University Press, 1975.
Zabus, Chantal. The African Palimpsest: Indigenization of Language in the West African Europhone Novel (2nd Enlarged Ed.): New York: Rodopi, 2007.

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics