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Contemporary Nigerian Fiction and the Return to the Recent Past

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BEARING WITNESS TO AN ERA: CONTEMPORARY NIGERIAN FICTION AND THE RETURN TO THE RECENT PAST Juliet Tenshak Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD in English Studies School of Arts and Humanities, University of Stirling. December 2017. Acknowledgements The Ph.D journey has been long, very challenging but rewarding. On this journey, I got fresh and startling insights to the meaning of the word „Help‟. I made it to this point because of the help I have received from so many people in various ways, and at different times. I am humbled. My first expression of gratitude goes to my supervisor Professor David Murphy, whose support, PATIENCE, and encouragement is in large part the reason I made it this far. I would also like to thank my second supervisor Dr. Gemma Robinson who has been unfailingly supportive and encouraging. I am also grateful to the school administrator Alison Scott for the support I received from her in the course of my study. I owe a debt of gratitude to the British Federation of Women Graduates, who provided much-needed financial support for the final year of my Ph.D. To my husband Fidel Odhiambo Wayara, you are my exceedingly great reward. Thank you for loving and pushing. To my girls; Walsham, Naannaa and Kiyenret, thank you for putting up with my absence. Thank you for making motherhood a thing of joy and fulfillment for me, and thank you for the sacrifices you individually and collectively made for me to do this. I love you girls more than the whole world and back! To my mother Dr. Joyce Mangvwat, thank you for all that you were for my girls and I. Thank you for always showing up and being a pillar of support. I wish you are here now. I pray you are resting with your maker and finally at peace. To my sister Naan Francis, I don‟t know how I would have coped without your continued, persistent and constant support and encouragement. Words fail to express the depth of my gratitude. To my friends Raulatu Piwuna, Jackie Olua, Blessing Gaiya, and Monique Toppin, thank you for not leaving me to walk this path alone. Thank you for all the times you allowed me to lay aside my survivor‟s shell and hidden from prying eyes, cry. You are friends who have stuck closer than sisters. Thank you to Ruth Sambo and Kiyenpiya Pwaspo for holding the fort in my absence and for being such great second mothers to my girls. May you abound in all things good. To Adamu Igoche, Morgan Piwuna and Idika Olua, Allah ya yi maku albarka! To Joan Whitehorn, Lore Kelling and Roselyn Boyd, those early months in Scotland were bearable because you opened your hearts and homes to me, I remain forever grateful. To my pastor Richard Olawale and his wife Debbie, of the RCCG City of God Stirling, what can I say? God bless you. To Nasir and Toyin Kolade and to Elizabeth Buba, I bless you. God has seen your labor of love, He recognizes the seeds you have sown, there is laid up for you a great harvest. I am grateful. ii Thank you to Okey Ndibe for sharing his thoughts about his novel Arrows of Rain with me. Daalu. Thank you to Obiwu who made it possible. Now to Him who has done exceedingly, abundantly, above all that I could ever think of or imagine - Glory! iii Abstract The body of writing collectively referred to as third generation or contemporary Nigerian literature emerged on the international literary scene from about the year 2000. This writing is marked by attempts to negotiate contemporary identities, and it engages with various developments in the Nigerian nation: Nigeria‟s past and current political and socio-economic state, different kinds of cultural hybridization as well as the writers increasing transnational awareness. This study argues that contemporary Nigerian fiction obsessively returns to the period from 1985-1998 as a historical site for narrating the individual and collective Nigerian experience of the trauma of military dictatorship, which has shaped the contemporary reality of the nation. The study builds on existing critical work on contemporary Nigerian fiction, in order to highlight patterns and ideas that have hitherto been neglected in scholarly work in this field. The study seeks to address this gap in the existing critical literature by examining third-generation Nigerian writing‟s representation of this era in a select corpus of work spanning from 2000-06: Okey Ndibe‟s Arrows of Rain (2000), Helon Habila‟s Waiting for an Angel (2002), Sefi Atta‟s Everything Good will Come (2005), and Chimamanda Adichie‟s Purple Hibiscus (2006). The four novels chosen were written in response to military rule and dictatorship in the 80s and 90s, and they all feature representations of state violence. This study finds that, despite variations in the novels aesthetic modes, violence, control, silencing, dictatorship, alienation, the trauma of everyday life and resistance recur in realist modes. Above all, the study argues that contemporary Nigerian fiction‟s insistent representation of the violent past of military rule in Nigeria is a means of navigating the complex psychological and political processes involved in dealing with post-colonial trauma by employing writing as a form of resistance. iv Authors Declaration I declare that this thesis is my own work and that all critical and other sources (literary and electronic) have been specifically and properly acknowledged, as and when they occur in the body of my text. Parts of this thesis appear in the following publications: Tenshak, J., "Dictatorship and Alienation in Sefi Atta‟s Everything Good will Come," in Walter P. Collins III (ed.), Writing Contemporary Nigeria: How Sefi Atta Illuminates African Culture and Tradition, New York: Cambria Press, 2015. Tenshak, J., "Popular Perception, Social Reality: The SAP Experience in Contemporary Nigerian Writing," International Journal of English Language and Translation Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2, 2015, pp.33-41. Signed: Juliet Tenshak Date: December 2017. v Table of Contents Acknowledgements ……………………………………………………………………………...ii Abstract …………………………………………………………………………………………iv Author’s Declaration…………………………………………………………………………….v Table of Contents ……………………………………………………………………………....vi Chapter One: History, Memory and the Imagination in Contemporary Nigerian Fiction 1.0. Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………..1 1.1. A New Generation of Writers and Writing from Nigeria………………………………….....9 1.1.1. The Literary Shift…………………………………………………………………………13 1.1.2. The Socio-Economic Situation……………………………………………………………14 1.1.3. The Political Influence………………………………………………………....................15 1.2. The Representation of History in the Selected Texts……………………………………….17 1.3. The Past in Nigerian Fiction………………………………………………………………...22 1.4. Literature and History in Contemporary Nigerian Fiction………………………………….25 1.5. Foregrounding the 80s and 90s in Contemporary Nigerian Fiction………………………...30 1.6 Critical Framework…………………………………………………………………………..32 1.7. The Female Writer in Nigeria……………………………………………………………….37 1.8. Chapter Breakdown……………………………………………………………....................41 Chapter Two: Control and Silencing in Okey Ndibe’s Arrows of Rain 2.0 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………44 2.1 Narrating a Nation…………………………………………………………………………..47 2.2 When Silence is not Golden…………………………………………………………………54 2.2 1. The Employment of Silence as a Means of Control………………………………………55 2.2.2. Discarding Silence to Challenge Power and Attain Agency……………………………...58 2.3. The Prison Condition of a Nation…………………………………………………………...63 2.3.1. Physical Imprisonment……………………………………………………………………65 2.3.2. Psychological Prison……………………………………………………………………...66 2.4. The Rape of a Nation……………………………………………………………………......67 2.5. Memory as Resistance………………………………………………………………………69 2.6. The Question of Identity…………………………………………………………………….71 2.7. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………..74 vi Chapter Three: Desperate Times, Desperate Measures: Resistance and Protest in Helon Habila’s Waiting for an Angel 3.0 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………….76 3.1 Examining Habila‟s use of the Imagination in Waiting for an Angel…………………….....82 3.2 Waiting for an Angel: Critical and Theoretical Context…………………………………….88 3.3 Resistance and Protest……………………………………………………………………....96 3.4 The Students‟ Protest: Action Inspired by Knowledge……………………………………..98 3.5 The Need for Action: Protest on Poverty Street……………………………………………104 3.6 The Repressive State Apparatus……………………………………………………………110 3.7 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….....113 Chapter Four: The Economics of Oppression: The SAP Experience in Sefi Atta’s Everything Good will Come 4.0. Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..116 4.1. SAP in Nigeria: An Overview……………………………………………………………..121 4.2. The Perception of SAP in Everything Good will Come…………………………………...127 4.3. The Repressive Nature of the Military during the Period of Adjustment…………………131 4.4. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………133 Chapter Five: Dictatorship, Alienation and the Trauma of Everyday Life in Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus 5.0. Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..134 5.1. A Reading of Purple Hibiscus as an Allegory…………………………………………….138 5.2. Dictatorship and Alienation: A definition…………………………………………………141 5.3. Dictatorship in Purple Hibiscus……………………………………………………………144 5.4. Tracing Alienation in Nigerian Literature…………………………………………………152 5.5. Alienation: Powerlessness…………………………………………………………………154 5.5.1. Between the Mask and the Face: Social Isolation……………………………………….157 5.5.2. Normlessness…………………………………………………………………………….159 5.6. The Trauma of Everyday Life……………………………………………………………..163 5.7. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………169
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