Kenyan and Algerian literary connections : dissertation submittedin partial fulfilment of the requirements

Abstract

The Following dissertation is a comparison of two outstanding authors in modern African literature; Ngugi Wa Thiong’O from Kenya, East Africa and Kateb Yacine from Algeria, North Africa. At the basis of the research is a belief that a commonality of experience and interests can lead writers belonging to different cultural backgrounds and geographic areas to write in a similar way and about similar themes. Indeed, colonial policies are such that contacts between East Africa and North Africa were scarce if not totally impossible during the Colonial Period. In the literary field, these contacts were short-circuited by a colonialist criticism that has continued to deal with African literature within “zones of influence” marked off during the Colonial Period. We have attempted to break away from these “zones of influence” by establishing linkages between a North African writing in French and an East African writing in English. This dissertation contains four chapters; the first chapter deals with the similarities of the contexts. The second treats personal histories that gave birth to literary affinities between Ngugi and Kateb the novelists. In the third chapter, we have carried further our analysis by drawing parallels between the two novels in terms of their narrative structure, characterisation, plot and themes. One of our conclusions is that these novels are modernist in the sense that both writers are involved in a quest for a personal style, a style that is most evident in the deployment of some modernist techniques such as flashbacks and interior monologues. In addition, the two novels contain some elements from the oral tradition. The fourth chapter is devoted to the analysis of Ngugi’s and Kateb’s shift to drama. Two stages are distinguished in the careers of Ngugi and Kateb as playwrights. In the first stage, Kateb and Ngugi abided to some extent by the principles of the Aristotelian tragedy but they also introduced new elements that made of Kateb’s Le Cacdavre encerclé, a lyrical tragedy, and Ngugi’s The Trial of Dedan Kimathi, a heroic tragedy. In the second stage of their dramatic careers, Ngugi and Kateb moved to Brechtian epic theatre still in response to the need to keep in touch with the people. The two works studied in this part of our dissertation are Ngugi’s I Will Marry When I Want and Kateb’s Mohamed, prends ta valise. The final conclusion that can be drawn from this comparison is that “zones of influence” that Eurocentric literary criticism has maintained after the departure of colonial powers should be blasted. We hope that this dissertation has contributed in a way to this breaking of literary barricades