The Hermeneutic Advantage Of A Comparative And Interdisciplinary Approach To The African Novel

Abstract

The main tendency in contemporary literary theory and criticism is to consider the novel as an intertextual and pluridisciplinary genre, suggesting that the comparative and interdisciplinary approach is best for the study of fiction for hermeneutic considerations. The African novel is even more characteristically intertextual, and is certainly characterised by an obvious «interpenetration of literature and human sciences» as Claude Wauthier puts it. Accordingly, this approach seems particularly recommendable for the analysis of African fiction. I propose to develop this idea with Ngugi as a focal illustrative example.