Myth and counterfactuality in diasporic African women’s novels
Date
2022-03
Authors
Journal Title
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Publisher
Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University
Abstract
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation focuses on the way in which a selection of novels by diasporic African women
writers has, in different ways, engaged with myth in order to challenge dominant masculinist and
essentialist narratives about women’s roles in African society. These authors either draw on
traditional myths, challenge the mythologising function of nationalist histories or generate new forms
of myths for the future. Although these novels are not counterfactual in the conventional sense–they
do not change the outcomes of history–I argue that counterfactual theory offers a valuable way of
analysing them. Each of the authors takes facts, historical figures, known histories, and myths, and
reworks them in different ways, creating new versions of events where women play key roles. I
demonstrate that analysing these texts as counterfactuals allows us to tease out how these authors
challenge the androcentric notions of gender in myth and history by focusing their imagination on the
silenced, elided, and undermined stories of African women. My reading of Jennifer
Makumbi’s Kintu (2014) and Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing (2016) explores how using myth to unsettle
history and history to unsettle myth uncovers complex stories of African women. Wartime novels
such as Maaza Mengiste’s The Shadow King (2019) and Nadifa Mohamed’s The Orchard of Lost
Souls (2013) focus on the mythologising function of nationalist histories in which certain stories are
elevated to a position of dominance and others are suppressed or ignored. Whether constructed by the
author or simulated by female characters, counterfactuals in the two novels construct worlds where
women’s roles and experiences during wars are revealed. My analysis of Jordan
Ifueko’s Raybearer (2020) and Nnedi Okorafor’s two novels, The Book of Phoenix (2015) and Who
Fears Death (2010), explores the genre of speculative fiction as a flexible space for experimenting
with the counterfactual framework in telling African women’s stories through new forms of myths.
The analysis shows that while narratives such as myth and history seem fixed and controlling,
counterfactuals are valuable tools for unsettling their dominance.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Geen opsomming beskikbaar
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Geen opsomming beskikbaar
Description
Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2022.
Keywords
African diaspora in literature, Makumbi, Jennifer Nansubuga -- Criticism and interpretation, Women authors, African -- Criticism and interpretation, Gyasi, Yaa -- Criticism and interpretation, Mengiste, Maaza -- Criticism and interpretation, Mohamed, Nadifa, 1981- -- Criticism and interpretation, UCTD