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Negotiating Cultural Identity in Exile: a Study of Dinaw

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Negotiating Cultural Identity in Exile: a Study of Dinaw NEGOTIATING CULTURAL IDENTITY IN EXILE: A STUDY OF DINAW MENGESTU’S CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION AND ALL OUR NAMES OPENDA RUTH KWAMBOKA C50/76331/2014 A Research Report submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Award of the Degree of Master of Arts in Literature, University of Nairobi. 2017 DECLARATION This research report is my original work and has not been presented for examination or the award of a degree at any University. Signature: ____________________ Date: ___________________ Openda, Ruth Kwamboka This research report has been submitted for examination with our approval as University supervisors: Signature: _____________________ Date: ______________________ Dr. Tom Odhiambo Signature: _______________________ Date: ________________________ Dr. Alex Wanjala ii DEDICATION TO MY FAMILY iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I first want to thank my supervisors, Dr. Alex Wanjala and Dr. Tom Odhiambo for their guidance, commitment and support throughout the course of this project. I’m grateful for your invaluable scholarly advice. I would also like to extend my gratitude to Prof. Dr. Susanne Gehrmann (Chair of The Institute for Asian and African Studies), and Dr. Pepetual Mforbe Chiangong (Lecturer African Literature and Culture) at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin for your scholarly insights and guidance during my stay at the institution. I also thank Prof. Peter Wasamba (Dean, Faculty of Arts) for the Humboldt Student Exchange Programme scholarship award that enabled me to travel and study at Humboldt- Universität zu Berlin, Germany. My sincere gratitude goes to my family for encouraging me throughout my studies; especially to my mother, Grace Openda for your unwavering love, support and prayers, and my brother Davis Openda for believing in me and supporting me financially, without you this degree will not have been a reality. My heartfelt gratitude goes to Samuel Mwabu for your constant support and encouragement which kept me going. To my classmates: Esther Nengo, Linda Ouma, Justus Kemboi, Kennedy Mugo, Kevin Mosigisi, Susan Kavaya, Christine Mbugua and Ludwick Ongeti, thank you for the support and encouragement. Finally, my heartfelt thanks go to the Almighty God for guaranteeing me good health. iv CONTENTS DECLARATION...................................................................................................................... ii DEDICATION........................................................................................................................ iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................... iv ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................. vi CHAPTER ONE ...................................................................................................................... 1 Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 1 Statement of the Problem ........................................................................................................ 5 Objectives of the Study ............................................................................................................ 6 Hypothesis ................................................................................................................................. 6 Justification .............................................................................................................................. 7 Scope and Limitation ............................................................................................................... 8 Literature Review .................................................................................................................... 8 Theoretical Framework ......................................................................................................... 15 Methodology ........................................................................................................................... 19 Definition of Terms ................................................................................................................ 19 CHAPTER TWO ................................................................................................................... 25 DISPLACEMENT, (UN) BELONGING AND NARRATIVE ASPECTS IN DINAW MENGESTU’S CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION ...................................................... 25 CHAPTER THREE ............................................................................................................... 55 ALIENATION, ESTRANGEMENT AND NARRATIVE ASPECTS IN ALL OUR NAMES.................................................................................................................................... 55 CHAPTER FOUR .................................................................................................................. 86 COMPARATIVE READING OF CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION AND ALL OUR NAMES.................................................................................................................................... 86 CHAPTER FIVE…………………………………………………………………………..101 CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………………….101 WORKS CITED................................................................................................................... 104 v ABSTRACT This study examines how immigrant characters in Dinaw Mengestu’s novels Children of the Revolution and All Our Names negotiate cultural identity in foreign spaces. Mengestu as a contemporary African writer in the diaspora explores the experiences of African immigrants and their struggles to belong in new cultural spaces challenging the notions of fixity and stability of identity hence opening up new modes of considering cultural identity. Drawing upon the concepts of hybridity, third space in postcolonial theory, and cosmopolitanism, this study suggests that these novels show subject position and cultural identity as not fixed into definitive categorical distinction but as fluid concepts. Mengestu does not only praise possibilities of belonging beyond the confines of a nation or community but also present the cosmopolitan world where negotiation and belonging is difficult because of power differences, racism, marginalization and discrimination. The study also relies on narratology in analysing the narrative strategies employed in the novels in constructing these cultural identities and how the author articulates his message to the readers. vi CHAPTER ONE BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY INTRODUCTION Questions of identity are a major concern for contemporary writers in the diaspora as witnessed in their fiction. These writers like Chimamanda Ngozi, Okey Ndibe, NoViolet Bulawayo among others explore the experiences of African Immigrants and their struggles to belong in the foreign land. These narratives are a major contribution to the understanding of issues of identity among African immigrants. Mukoma wa Ngugi argues for the incorporation of the new canon of literature written by African migrants in the African literary canon. According to Mukoma themes such as race, identity and tensions between African and African-American affecting first and second generation African immigrants are real and crucial matters being reflected in the fiction emanating from the diaspora (2015:1). Dinaw Mengestu is an African immigrant writer and journalist in the U.S. He was born in Ethiopia, 1978 and later migrated to America only two years old to be with his father who left Ethiopia two years earlier because of the revolution. He has written three novels and non-fiction articles. The three novels are; Children of the Revolution (2007), How to Read the Air (2010) and All our Names (2013). His first novel was named a New York Notable Book and awarded the Guardian First Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction among other honours. His second novel was the winner of the 2011 Earnest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. Mengestu’s novels narrate issues of violent uprooting, loss, identity and African immigrants’ experiences in America. My study will focus on his two novels Children of the Revolution 1 (2007) and All Our Names (2013). Children of the Revolution focuses on the experiences of African immigrants in America, the life of the narrator, Sepha Stephanos who fled his country in the wake of Red terror attack that claimed his father seventeen years before, and his friends Joe from Congo and Kenneth from Kenya. All Our Names focuses on Isaac, who leaves his country Ethiopia to join university in Uganda. In Uganda he is drawn in to a revolutionary war in campus that later engulfs the whole country. In the wake of the killings during the revolution Isaac is given a chance to escape to America by his friend Isaac on a student visa. In America, he starts a passionate relationship with Helen a social worker assigned to take care of him. Mengestu as an Ethiopian émigré in America has experienced the life of an African immigrant in America and the challenges he faced shapes his fiction. In an interview with Josephine Reed Mengestu opens up about what inspired his first novel, The Children of the Revolution. He reveals that his own experiences and that of his family moving from Ethiopia to America because of war, the death of his uncle and his experiences as an immigrant in America contributed to the events in the first novel (2014). In studying Mengestu’s selected
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