The intellectuel, history and society in the novels of John Don Passos, sembene Ousmane and Ngufgi Wa Thiong's

Abstract

In this doctoral thesis entitled ''The Intellectual, History and Society in the Novels of John Dos Passos, Ngugi Wa Thiong'o and Sembene Ousmane: A Comparative Study", we look at the way the American and African intellectuals respond to the historical and social events of their societies, namely to war, capitalism and consumerism. The first axis concerns the attitude of American and African intellectuals towards war ,as represented in J. Dos Passos's Three Soldiers, W.Ngugi's Weep not, Child and The River Between and O. Sembene's Opays, mon beau peuple.The second axis centers on the intellectuals' denunciation of capitalist exploitation and corruption in J. Dos Passos's the 42 Parallel, Ngugi's Petals of Blood and Sembene's Les bouts de bois de Dieu . As to the third axis, it deals mainly with that violent attack against the post-war American leisure class in Dos Passos's the Big Money and the masterful post-independence African national bourgeoisie in Ngugi's Devil on the Cross and Sembene's Xala .