Poetics and Politics in Contemporary African Travel Writing

Poetics and Politics in Contemporary African Travel Writing Maureen Amimo Thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Stellenbosch University Supervisor: Prof Louise Green Co-supervisor: Prof Grace Musila March 2020 i Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za Declaration By submitting this thesis electronically, I declare that the entirety of the work contained therein is my own, original work, that I am the sole author thereof (save to the extent explicitly otherwise stated), that reproduction and publication thereof by Stellenbosch University will not infringe any third party rights and that I have not previously in its entirety or in part submitted it for obtaining any qualification. Date: ……………………………………… Copyright © 2020 Stellenbosch University All rights reserved ii Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za Abstract This study investigates contemporary travel narratives about Africa by Africans authors. Scholarship on travel writing about Africa has largely centred examples from the Global North, yet there is a rich body of travel writing by African authors. I approach African travel writing as an emerging genre that allows African authors to engage their marginality within the genre and initiate a transformative poetics inscribing alternative politics as viable forms of meaning-making. I argue that contemporary African travel writing stretches and redefines the aesthetic limits of the genre through experimentation which enables the form to carry the weight and complexities of African experiences. Drawing on the work of theorists such as Edward Said, Mary Louise Pratt, James Clifford and Syed Manzurul Islam, as well as local philosophy emergent from the texts, I examine the reimaginations of the form of the travel narrative, which centre African experiences. This study examines the adaptations of the traditional poetics of the genre within a spirit of ‘writing back’ in Binyavanga Wainaina’s ‘Discovering Home,’ Sihle Khumalo’s Dark Continent, My Black Arse and Almost Sleeping My Way to Timbuktu, and Kofi Akpabli’s A Sense of the Savannah: Tales of a Friendly Walk through Northern Ghana. I argue that the practice of ‘writing back’ is both constrained and complicated by the conflicted histories of imperialism and neo-imperialism that surrounds the genre. This is followed by an exploration of Afrocentric interventions in the genre in the form of what I call the literary guidebook. In this section I argue for a reading of Tony Mochama’s Nairobi: A Night Guide through the City-in-the-Sun, Alba Kunadu Sumprim’s A Place of Beautiful Nonsense and Veronique Tadjo’s The Shadow of Imana: Travels in the Heart of Rwanda as literary guidebooks that invest in the form fluidity capable of capturing the unstable textures of place within contemporary African urban and emotional geographies. The last section explores return as a distinct sub-genre of travel in Africa. By return, I refer to narratives where African subjects in the diaspora travel back to places of their ancestry within the continent. This section focusses on Leah Chishugi’s A Long Way from Paradise: Surviving the Rwandan Genocide, Noo Saro-Wiwa’s Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria, Teju Cole’s Every Day is for the Thief, and Neera Kapur-Dromson’s From Jhelum to Tana. I argue that return travel is inflected by contestations of a past and a present of the travelling subject’s psyche, from which stem losses and continuities, remembering and forgetting, revelation and concealment, all of which inform perception in the moment of return. Throughout this dissertation, a significant definition of the kinds of travel and travel narratives possible emanates from the complex position of the authors as subjects travelling spaces that refuse reductive reading. By paying attention to the intricate complexities of the locatedness of the travelling subjects, contemporary African travel writing expands the margins of the genre and the kinds of discursivity the form generates. This study iii Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za concludes that African travel writing is an interpretation of the genre that involves both a transformation of the form and a contestation of its politics. iv Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za Acknowledgments This academic journey has been enabled by various people and funders who have left indelible footprints in my life and work. My utmost gratitude goes to my supervisor Prof Louise Green without whose support and expertise this work would not have materialised. Her attention to detail allowed the labour of this writing to mature in the way it has. I thank my co-supervisor Prof Grace Musila for believing in this project, being the ‘devil’s advocate’ and asking the tough questions which pushed me to think critically about the project. I acknowledge the Gerda Henkel foundation for funding my research and stay in South Africa, through the Lisa Maskell fellowship offered at the Graduate School of Arts, Stellenbosch University in partnership with PANGeA. I thank the English Department, Stellenbosch University for support. I am especially grateful to the chair, Prof Sally-Anne Murray for encouragement and facilitation to attend various conferences. I extend my appreciation to Prof Tina Steiner and Prof Shaun Viljoen for coordinating postgraduate events in the department which allowed me to meet different scholars and generate an academic network and culture. I am indebted to Prof Annie Gagiano and Dr Matilda Slabbert, who opened their doors to me and had patience to offer guidance whenever I dropped by. I also thank Dr Jean Ellis, Dr Phalaphala and the rest of the staff in the department for the collegial community offered. I am most grateful to the East African/Indian Ocean (EA/IO) and Nature reading groups for the insightful and thought-provoking discussions that have informed my thinking throughout this process. Special thanks to Prof Gabeba Baderoon and Prof Stephanie Newell. Their openness to questions and willingness to offer guidance was instrumental formative stages of my work. I thank the Department of Literature, University of Nairobi for the opportunity accorded through their network with Stellenbosch University for this chance to study in SU. I especially thank my MA supervisors, Dr Jennifer Muchiri, and Dr Kimingichi Wabende for mentorship that allowed the bones of my interest in travel writing to emerge. I also acknowledge Dr Godwin Siundu, Dr Tom Odhiambo and Prof Peter Wasamba for encouragement and motivation in my academic journey. I am indebted to Dr Rebecca Jones of the University of Birmingham who availed her work to me. I appreciate my family for always supporting my endeavours, crazy or otherwise. I thank my parents Wycliffe Ong’ai and Mary Anindo Njeli for their continuous faith in me and support towards my academic growth. To my siblings James, Joy, Wendy and Martha, ahsanteni sana for always encouraging me and being there for me. v Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za I also appreciate my mentors, Merciana Nafula Were and Lydia Oidi. I honour them for their constant calls and texts gave me the energy to keep working. I thank Merciana for the critical comments throughout the development of this thesis. Friends both in Stellenbosch and elsewhere have given me their affection and blessings, for which I am appreciative. To Pauline Liru, I owe a debt of gratitude. I honour her for being my critical sounding board, my sister and critic in the writing process and for patience throughout this project. I also thank Dr Nick Mdika Tembo and Dr Serah Kasembeli for interactive discussions from which emerged exciting criticism that had a bearing on this work. I thank my cohort mates, 2017 cohort of the graduate school: Itai, Steve, Sr. Mary-Jane, Admire, Dande, Doro, Thulani, Alfred, Trevor, Lloyd, Abena, Hildah, and the late Muhamadi, for friendship and encouragement. I also wish to thank other members of the graduate school community including Jacky, Spemba, Rehema, Basil, Brian, Benjamin and others. A special thank you to the Kenyan community in Stellenbosch for welcoming me and extending sustained relations of home away from home. I wish to thank friends in Nairobi and elsewhere: Jackie, Racheal, Jeniffer, Obala, Godfrey, Winnie and Alice, thank you for encouragement and friendship. To Sylvia, Maureen, and Anne thanks for reminding me of the little things, the things we take for granted when walking this journey. I thank God for enabling this journey. vi Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za Table of Contents Declaration ...................................................................................................................................... ii Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................... v Table of Contents .......................................................................................................................... vii List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ ix Chapter One Introduction: Mapping African Travel Writing ...................................................... 1 A Contextual Departure for Contemporary

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