Postcolonial African Fiction: The Crisis of Consciousness
By Mala Pandurang
 
 
This book focuses on the postcolonial African fiction, especially of Ayi Kwei Armah, Ngugi wa thiong’o and Es’kia Mphahlele, as ‘narratives of Liberation’ from the stranglehold of neo-cultural imperialism. Taking into account the historical and ideological dimensions of the neo-colonial situation and the bitter disillusionment of these writers with post-independence rhetoric, the author examines their use of imaginative discouon the postcolonial African fiction, especially of Ayi Kwei Armah, Ngugi wa thiong’o and Es’kia Mphahlerse to work out a process of decolonization. She also probes how the class position of these writers has led to a questioning of their role as cultural spokespersons of the larger community.

The search for an alternative order of society has also necessitated a reconceptualization of artistic priorities in the works of these writers. An analysis therefore is made of the technique and modes of resistance evolved by Armah, Ngugi and Mphahlele. Also examined is the debate on the validity of the novel in English as an effective genre of commitment.
 
Mala Pandurang was born at Bukoba, Tanzania. She studied in Zambia until her ‘A’ levels and lived through the painful period of post-independence disillusionment. She holds a Ph.D. degree on the thesis entitled “The Changing African Consciousness: A Study of the Novels of Ayi Kwei Armah, Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Es’kia Mphahlele” from the SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai. She is currently teaching at Dr. B.M.N. College of Home Science, affiliated to the SNDT Women’s University. Keenly interested in Post-Colonial Theory, she is at present involved in a post-doctoral research project on the East-African Asian diasporic experience.

Dr. Pandurang has presented papers in national and international seminars and conferences, and has published in scholarly journals including The Literary Criterion, The Commonwealth Quarterly, and The Literary Half-Yearly.
 
ISBN 81-85753-14-8           1997           212 pp           Rs.400 (hb)
 
What distinguishes Ms Pandurang’s very well researched study from many others is the cogent and lucid style in which she puts forward her hypothesis . . . . refereshingly different.
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