African Literature in the Digital Age: Class and Sexual Politics in New Writing from Nigeria and Kenya

African Literature in the Digital Age: Class and Sexual Politics in New Writing From Nigeria and Kenya By Olorunshola Adenekan A Thesis Submitted to The University of Birmingham For the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Centre of West African Studies College of Arts and Law The University of Birmingham January 2012. University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. ABSTRACT Using wide-ranging literature and theoretical concepts published digitally and in print, this thesis will build the emerging picture of African literature in English that is being published in the digital space. The study will analyse the technological production of classed and sexualised bodies in new African writing in cyberspace by some of the young writers from Nigeria and Kenya, as well as writing from a few of their contemporaries from other African countries. This thesis will also analyse the differences between the agenda of the previous generation – including representation and perspectives - and that of a new generation in cyberspace. In the process, I hope to show how literature in cyberspace is asking questions as much of psychic landscapes as of the material world. To my knowledge, there is no substantive literary study done so far that contextualizes this digital experience. i Dedicated to Laura Smith, Adefela Adenekan and to the memory of my late father Thomas Oladipupo Akanni Adenekan. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to thank Dr Stewart Brown for his unwavering and immense support throughout the course of this doctoral research. Dr Brown’s insight, astounding patience, advice and supervision made the crossover from journalism to literary studies a lot easier for me. His approach and temperament were well suited to the way I work and think through ideas. And he also provided tremendous support in my role as a teaching assistant. I could not have wished for a better supervisor and mentor. I must also thank my partner Laura Smith, the woman who shared every anguish and joy of doctoral study with me. Laura’s support was crucial to this doctoral thesis. My immense gratitude to Dr Conrad James who first taught me how to read and contextualise literary texts when I first joined CWAS as a postgraduate student. I am also grateful to Dr Helen Cousins, Dr Tobias Green and Prof Karin Barber, all of whom I have worked with on projects that have been invaluable to this thesis. My thanks and gratitude to Dr Wambui Mwangi of the University of Toronto and Dr Keguro Macharia of the University of Maryland’s Department of English, both of whom became my sounding board for ideas during the course of this PhD. I must thank Unoma N. Azuah of Lane College, Amatoritsero Ede of Carleton University, the writers of Ederi, Krazitivity, Concerned Kenyan Writers listserv, Saraba magazine and several writers on Facebook, who allowed me to invade their space during the course of this PhD. iii Gratitude to my brothers, Adebayo and Olayinka, and to my friends Usman Arshad, Femi Adelowo, Abiodun Godwin Vincent and Saliu Mohammed, for their support throughout this doctoral study. I also must express my gratitude to my in-laws to be, Ian and Renate Smith, both of whom provided enormous support. Most of all, I must thank my son Adefela Adenekan, who is now reminding me of what really matters in life. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: The African Writer and the Changing Nature of The Text in a Digital Age…………………………………………………………………………………………….1 Theorising Class Consciousness………………………………………………………….2 Theorising Sexuality….…………………………………………………………………..7 The Idea of Space and the Internetting of literature………………………………………9 The Book Versus Cyberspace…………………………………………………………...13 Online Publishing and the Economy of Visibility………………………………………19 The Idea of the ‘Private’ as Used in this Thesis…………………………………………24 The Concept of Generations of Modern African Writers………………..………………27 The Writer as Reporter……………………………………………………….………….31 Methodology…………………………………………………………………………….34 Chapter One: African Poetry in a Digital Age…………..………………………………….41 Cybertext and the Concept of Class………………………………………………..43 The Audience and Cybertext………………………………………………………53 Politics and Online Poetry…………………………………………………………60 Transnationalism and the idea of Home………………………………………….. 70 Chapter Two: Class and the Online Writing Space……………………………………….75 Cyberspace as a Marker of Social Status in Contemporary Africa………………...77 Online Fictional Characters as Embodying Real Life Class Struggle……………...88 Chapter Three: From Wole Soyinka to Shailja Patel: Queer Sexual Politics in a New Media Age …………………………………………………………………………………104 The African Queer as Anti-Capitalist Cyborg……………………………………123 Chapter Four: The Queer Body, the Digital Space and the Agenda of Late Capitalism…………………………………………………………………………………...138 Diasporic Queers in Online Literature……………………………………………..155 Morality in the Closet……………………………………………………………....161 Chapter Five: From the Print to the Web: Modernity and the Libidinal Modern Girl………………………………………………………………………………………….167 The Emergence of the Libidinal Modern Girl……………………………………..177 African Women’s Bodies as Outhouses for Men………………………………….183 The Modern Woman’s Quest for Love……………………………………………188 v Chapter Six: Representations of the Libidinal Economy in a New Media Age……….197 Euro-modernity and the History of Literary Representation of the Libidinal……..200 The Nature of Sex Work in the Twenty-First Century……………………………209 The Prostitute as a Tormented Figure……………………………………………..213 Chapter Seven: Class and the New Sex Worker………………………………………227 Sex and the Mobile Phone…………………………………………………..241 New Sex Workers……………………………………………………………245 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………..253 Bibliographical References…………………………………………………………………265 vi INTRODUCTION TO THESIS THE AFRICAN WRITER AS REPORTER AND THE CHANGING NATURE OF TEXT IN A DIGITAL AGE In The Anthropology of Texts, Persons and Publics, Karin Barber (2007: 40) makes a case for the study of all genres. Borrowing from Franco Moretti, she argues that the traditional obsession with "canonical texts has blocked our view of the real historical processes at work in the emergence and spread of literary forms." Barber succinctly articulates why all literary forms deserve our attention, including those that failed, those that were once successful but have now faded away, and those that are just emerging. When doing this, she asks us to pay special attention to devices and genres. This thesis represents a critical exploration of class and sexual politics in the creative writing of a new generation of Kenyan and Nigerian writers in a digital age. Its goal is to present a new generation of modern African writers as people engrossed in using literature in cyberspace to reimagine and reframe class and sexual identities, in their position as cultural ambassadors. Through a comparative analysis of the agenda of creative work in the book age – and to a smaller extent in the pre-colonial era - with the way a new generation of African writers is using the digital space to project itself, the postcolonial state and Africa in the twenty-first century - this thesis is taking the position that the African artist is an agenda setter, who is often interested in framing and determining his society’s cultural values. This research will also be shedding new lights on how regular real-time interactions between writers and their readers online, are shaping the discourse of personal and collective identities, especially the issues of sexuality and social formation. We can link this to what Kolade Odutola (2012:18) aptly called “Cyber-framing”, and this is because cyberspace 1 enables digitally-wired Africans the chance to shape and re-frame the way they and their societies are seen and perceived. Also, a concept of the potential to impact self-realization in cyberspace can be parlayed to fictional narratives and poetry, especially in fictional characters implicit or stated position as embodiment of a social class and as belonging to a particular sexual orientation. Werner Severin and James Tankard (2000: 219) see this as the “agenda-function of the media,” since cyberspace is an intrinsic part of the media. Here, this study sees African writers in the new media space as agenda-setters within and outside of literature. This investigation will therefore provide essential academic insight into the thinking and worldview of members of a new generation of African writers. To my knowledge, no substantive literary study has been done so far that contextualizes these experiences. Theorizing Class Consciousness Since time immemorial, African artists have consistently held the responsibility of shaping and imagining identities. Cultural values have also likewise been inscribed on sculptures, masks, songs, dances, oral poetry and written texts. With regards to this new millennium, what we are witnessing online should be seen as a continuation of these cultural responsibilities of the African artist. The first two chapters of this thesis illustrate how the artist represents class consciousness

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