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No Single Stories: Multilocal Spaces and Identities in Selected Novels by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Sefi Atta, Taiye Selasi, and Noviolet Bulawayo

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No Single Stories: Multilocal Spaces and Identities in Selected Novels by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Sefi Atta, Taiye Selasi, and Noviolet Bulawayo No Single Stories: Multilocal Spaces and Identities in Selected Novels by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Sefi Atta, Taiye Selasi, and NoViolet Bulawayo Masterthesis Zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades Master of Arts (M.A.) Eingereicht für die Studienrichtung „Interdisziplinäre Geschlechterstudien“ an der Karl–Franzens–Universität Graz vorgelegt von: Angelika Heiling Betreut von: Ao. Univ.-Prof. Mag.a Dr.in phil. Roberta Maierhofer, M.A. Graz, 2017 Acknowledgments I would like to thank everyone who supported me in writing my thesis, in particular Ao. Univ.-Prof. Mag.a Dr.in phil. Roberta Maierhofer, M.A. for her incredible patience and invaluable advice and support. Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 1 I Theoretical Concepts and Formations in Relation to 'African' and 'Postcolonial' Literature(s)' ............................................................................................................................... 3 1 'African Literature(s)'? 'Postcolonial Literature(s)'?: Literary Categorizations under Debate ..................................................................................................................................... 3 2 African Literary Traditions ............................................................................................. 8 3 The 'Posts-': Poststructuralism and Postcolonialism ..................................................... 14 II Postcolonial and Diaspora Literatures .............................................................................. 19 1 'Migration' and 'Hybridity' in Postcolonial Literary Studies ......................................... 22 2 'Afropolitanism' and 'Multilocality': Questions of Location and Identity in Contemporary Discourses on Africa and the Diaspora ........................................................ 24 3 'Postnational Feminisms' as a Response to Gendered Nationalisms in Postcolonial Literatures ............................................................................................................................. 35 III 'Multilocality' and Multiple Identities in Literature: A Discussion of Americanah, A Bit of Difference, Ghana Must Go, and We Need New Names .......................................................... 43 1 Americanah (2013) ........................................................................................................ 45 2 A Bit of Difference (2013) ............................................................................................. 55 3 Ghana Must Go (2013) ................................................................................................. 64 4 We Need New Names (2013) ......................................................................................... 71 IV The three R's: An Intersectional Analysis of African Postcolonial Literatures ................ 80 1 Rituals ............................................................................................................................ 80 2 Relationships ............................................................................................................... 109 3 Restrictions .................................................................................................................. 114 Conclusion: Multilocal Spaces and Identities ........................................................................ 117 Works Cited ............................................................................................................................ 121 Introduction Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Sefi Atta, Taiye Selasi, NoViolet Bulawayo: what do these four authors and their novels have in common? The most obvious feature is certainly their connection to the African continent in one way or another, regarding the writers' own background as well as the content and settings of their novels. Another characteristic element is their focus on migrant and diaspora experiences. These are not only restricted to life in the country of immigration but include the process of returning to their own or their parents' place of origin. Most importantly, though, the four novels share an understanding of 'space' or 'place' which can be called 'multilocal'. The focus on place as a category of analysis is not a new idea. Bakhtin used the concept of 'chronotope' to describe the spatial/temporal frame of narratives (1981). Following Deleuze's argumentation (2006), the spatial/temporal frame of a narrative certainly plays "a key role in the production of meaning, as the matrix of situated meaning- making, roles, identities, values, boundaries and crossings, cultural classes of discourse and tools" (Lorino). The idea of 'multilocality' is based on the assumption that personal narratives of place are not limited to conventional singular, unilateral, albeit in many cases unsatisfying, national affiliations and descriptions of belonging but can be rather described as "local performativities of place" (Stroud and Jegels 179) which are multilateral and fluid. These performativities of place affect and are highly interconnected with processes of identity formation which are equally seen as multiple, fluid, intersecting, and ambiguous in nature. This specific understanding of space and identity formation guided the selection of the novels whose authors are often seen as belonging to a contemporary group of 'Afropolitan' writers. While I will critically discuss the term and concept which became popular after 2000, I do not believe that the four writers should be confined to any particular category—'African', 'Afropolitan', or any other—but that their novels should be read with an open mind and appreciated on the basis of their content. In my thesis, I try to avoid the uncritical use of category names, a practice which tends to 'freeze' elements in time and space and creates artificial and limiting boundaries in thinking. However, I have to admit that I do resort to their application more often than I intended to for lack of more adequate or, at least, alternative ways and methods to express my thoughts. Despite their inadequacy, it is, in fact, often unavoidable to use the same categorizations and generalizations which we reject to be able to talk about existing 'lived' inequalities so that 1 hopefully, we will eventually be able to deconstruct them more successfully. Ultimately, any struggle around new forms of expressing identity, space, and so on, "inevitably confronts the fixed traditions of place and being" (based on a quote by Otsuji and Pennycook 244). Furthermore, it is important for the reader to be aware that I am writing from a certain position which differs, probably in more than one way, from the one that the authors and characters occupy. As a young white woman, it is undoubtedly a position of relative privilege and as much as I try to be as self-reflexive and self-critical as possible, a certain Eurocentrism in my perspective will be unavoidable, as we have all been socialized within structures and systems with a long history of bias and unequal power relations. However, these structures are not supposed to be viewed in simplistic and essentialist ways and as fixed in time and space; it is more helpful to assume a perspective of intersectionality, relationality, and plurality. Before discussing the actual novels, the history and contemporary meanings and implications of popular literary categories such as African literature and postcolonial literature are explored, in the context of concepts and tools of analysis provided by poststructuralist and postcolonial theories. Slowly, we are moving from anticolonial and rather nationalist tendencies to more global and cosmopolitan concepts with Appadurai and the Afropolitan approaches by Achille Mbembe, Taiye Selasi, and Simon Gikandi. Finally, women writers and their versions of postcolonial as well as postnational narratives are shown to take center stage in accounts of contemporary multiple, fluid, intersecting, and ambiguous spaces, identities and feelings of belonging. 2 I Theoretical Concepts and Formations in Relation to 'African' and 'Postcolonial' Literature(s)' 1 'African Literature(s)'? 'Postcolonial Literature(s)'?: Literary Categorizations under Debate In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. Or it is hot and steamy with very short people who eat primates. Don't get bogged down with precise descriptions. Africa is big: fifty-four countries, 900 million people who are too busy starving and dying and warring and emigrating to read your book. The continent is full of deserts, jungles, highlands, savannahs and many other things, but your reader doesn't care about all that, so keep your descriptions romantic and evocative and unparticular. (Wainaina "How to write about Africa") These satirical instructions on how to write about Africa by Binyavanga Wainaina show that the representation of Africa in literature has been and continues to be highly problematic and charged with meanings and biases. Taiye Selasi observed in her opening speech at the 2013 Internationales Literaturfestival Berlin that "'African Literature' does not exist" because 'Africa' as we understand it—a single entity, a place, a people, a culture that can be known and described—is pure invention and only exists in our minds (Selasi, "African Literature Doesn't Exist" 7; Bady "African
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