The Concept of Nation-State in the African Novel

Abstract

The idea of the nation in Africa has been widely dealt with in modern African literature, arising from the fact that writers are bent on expressing their concern about the future of their countries. Chinua Achebe, Ayi Kwei Armah, Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Kofi Awoonor are some such writers, as witness their efforts at conceiving of Afrotopia, or at best viable socio-political systems in the wake of colonial situation. The present research work aims to examine closely these novelists’ ideological convictions as they are expressed in their fictions and often shown to be in opposition to the practices established by the state apparatuses in place. My study shows how the African situation has been characterised in African novels by both a common continental experience and a number of facts that dramatise the historical predicament of slavery, colonialism and a problematic independence. These representations carry dialogical voices which underpin the authoritative voice of the authors. The narratives of the nation are shown to be ambivalent, for they seem to act in defence of the novelists’ culture, yet they jettison its very quintessence in the sceptical view they reflect about its significance in modern times.