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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Regimes of waste: aesthetics, politics, and waste from Kofi Awoonor and Ayi Kwei Armah to Chimamanda Adichie and Zeze Gamboa
Author:Ryan, Connor
Year:2013
Periodical:Research in African Literatures (ISSN 0034-5210)
Volume:44
Issue:4
Pages:51-68
Language:English
Geographic term:Africa
Subjects:novels
films
wastes
politics
About persons:Kofi N. Awoonor (1935-2013)ISNI
Ayi Kwei Armah (1939-)ISNI
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (1977-)ISNI
Zézé GamboaISNI
External link:http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/research_in_african_literatures/v044/44.4.ryan.pdf
Abstract:This essay argues that waste - as a symbol, a trope, and a material condition - permits us to reimagine the link between post-independence African novels of disillusionment and contemporary works preoccupied with the tenuousness of national prosperity and identity. From Kofi Awoonor's 'This Earth, My Brother' (1971, Ghana) and Ayi Kwei Armah's 'The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born' (1968, Ghana) to Chimamanda Adichie's 'Half of a Yellow Sun' (2006, Nigeria) and Zeze Gamboa's film 'O Heroi' (2004, Angola), waste is not merely an aesthetic oddity joining together these selected texts. Transforming literary representations of waste reflect a revaluation of our received notions of nationhood, the distribution of wealth and value in society, the aims of political liberation, and the legitimate means of political engagement. The author argues that waste has become an ambiguous symbol of both the uncertainty resulting from national and social disintegration and the possibility of forming renewed social bonds. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]
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