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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Confronting the history of slavery and colonization in the poetry of M. Al-Fayturi and Langston Hughes
Author:Gohar, Saddik MohamedISNI
Year:2007
Periodical:Research Review (ISSN 0855-4412)
Volume:23
Issue:2
Pages:1-21
Language:English
Notes:biblio. refs.
Geographic terms:Africa
United States
Subjects:poetry
writers
African Americans
literature
Literature and history
Slavery in literature
About persons:Muhammad al-Fayturi (ca. 1936-2015)ISNI
James Langston Hughes (1902-1967)ISNI
Abstract:Mohamed Al-Fayturi was born in Sudan in the 1930s, but lived in various Arab countries. He considers himself a black African poet, committed to defend the rights of the black people all over the world. As a younger poet, Al-Fayturi came under the influence of Afro-American writers, particularly the poet Langston Hughes. Hughes, like Al-Fayturi, turns colonial mythology upside down, celebrating Africa as the land of civilizations. In his attempt to challenge colonial hegemony and promote the colonized sense of identity, Al-Fayturi is engaged in an intercultural dialogue with Hughes, in order to reconstruct a history devastated by slavery and imperialism. Rooted in a revolutionary basis - both poets adhered to the Marxist/socialist ideology -, the mutual dialogue between the two poets aims to dismantle colonial narratives about Africa and the black people by revising history and rewriting the story of slavery and colonization from the viewpoint of the colonized and the oppressed. Carrying the scars of enslavement and hegemony, Langston Hughes and Mohamed Al-Fayturi poetically engage the history of racism and colonization linking the African literary tradition with its counterpart in the United States. This paper includes poetry in English by both poets. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French. [Journal abstract, edited]
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