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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Engaging dreams: alternative perspectives on Flora Nwapa, Buchi Emecheta, Ama Ata Aidoo, Bessie Head, and Tsitsi Dangarembga's writing
Author:Phillips, MaggiISNI
Year:1994
Periodical:Research in African Literatures
Volume:25
Issue:4
Pages:89-103
Language:English
Geographic term:Subsaharan Africa
Subjects:dreams
literature
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/3819869
Abstract:Throughout the ethnic diversity of Africa, dreaming is a gift passed down through a multitude of forbears and the dreaming received is full-blooded experience. Dreams predict and torture or protect; dreaming enters other realities and is the site of ritual psychic healing. For African writers, dream activity is a valuable storehouse of experience with which to explore narratives and question the nature of knowing across the breadth and depth of the unending human story. This article focuses on the dream content and form in the writings of Flora Nwapa, Buchi Emecheta, Ama Ata Aidoo, Bessie Head, and Tsitsi Dangarembga. History has bombarded these writers with not one but at least two ideational worlds (African and European), enabling them to command such a spectrum of possibilities that it is impossible to say how many dreaming realms they access. Their writing evokes dreams as spiritual compensation, historical revenge, and the means of moral transmission. Each writer engages the inexplicable as both treasure and persecution in disturbing texts where humanity prevails. Bibliogr., note.
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