Beautiful Dreams: Deconstructing Discourses of Redemption in Darko’s Beyond the Horizon (1995), Unigwe’s On Black Sisters’ Street (2009), Adichie’s Americanah (2013) And Mbue’s Behold the Dreamers (2016)
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Date
2022
Authors
Makokha, Gloria Ajami
Muhia, Mugo
Obura, Oluoch
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Royallite Global
Abstract
This paper entails an analysis of how in their different particularities,
Amma Darko’s Beyond the Horizon, Chika Unigwe’s On Black Sisters’
Street; Chimamanda Adichie’s Americanah and Imbolo Mbue’s
Behold the Dreamers explore the underbelly of notions informing the
discourse of a redemptive West for Africans located at the margins
of globalisation. The analysis locates Chimamanda’s Americanah and
Mbue’s Behold the Dreamers within the racialised polity in the USA,
in the midst of either a global economic meltdown or individual
inability to access the fruits of globalisation because of the fact of
race or immigration status. It also explores how choicelessness in
the job market in Europe informs the radical choice of persisting
at the social and economic margins of Europe despite the harsh
realities and outcomes in this choice. This paper demonstrates
that the questions of place at particular moments in history force
a revision of initial fantasy about the notions of the redemptive
West. This textual analysis is informed by the postcolonial theory,
as articulated by Robert Nichols and Homi Bhabha and their
postulations on identity, ‘othering’ and ‘in-between spaces’.
Description
Article
Keywords
African descent, diaspora, female characters, home, identity, immigrants, the West
Citation
Makokha, G. A., Muhia, M., & Obura, O. (2022). Beautiful dreams: Deconstructing discourses of redemption in Darko’s Beyond the Horizon (1995), Unigwe’s On Black Sisters’ Street (2009), Adichie’s Americanah (2013) and Mbue’s Behold the Dreamers (2016). Hybrid Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies, 4(3), 11-24.