This dissertation, “Fictions of Development: Decolonization, Development Economics, and the African Novel,” maps the tensions as well as the surprising resonances and interdependencies between development institutions and African literary production. The arc of the dissertation begins in the early 1960s, as many postcolonial countries marked their independence by embarking on ambitious national development programs. It extends through the turbulent 1970s, during which the Global South agitated for a New International Economic Order that would deliver “trade, not aid,” and the reactionary 1980s, in which the World Bank and the IMF pressured governments across the Global South into adopting a series of macroeconomic reforms known as structural adjustment. The dissertation ends in the present moment, as pressing social and environmental concerns have given rise to a (supposedly) new era of “sustainable” development. Taken as a whole, “Fictions of Development” unsettles received notions about both development and African literature. Scholars working in and around postcolonial studies have long understood development as the contemporary counterpart to, and outgrowth of, the “civilizing mission” that once underwrote centuries of European conquest and colonization. Such close ties between colonialism and development have given rise to the widespread assumption that postcolonial writers, in rejecting colonialism, also rejected development. However, by turning to the historical interactions between writers from “developing” countries and the organizations charged with the task of “developing” those countries, this dissertation tells a more complex story. Applying the tools and methods of literary criticism to a wide range of materials—from novels, plays, and memoirs to national economic planning documents, World Bank mission reports, and tourist brochures—this dissertation traces some of the ways that western development institutions use narrative form to stake their claims to knowledge of (and therefore power over) the so-called “developing” world. It also shows how four African writers—Botswana’s Bessie Head, Ghana’s Ama Ata Aidoo, Kenya’s Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, and Zimbabwe’s Tsitsi Dangarembga—use the narrative form of the novel to propose alternative visions of development grounded in the principles of social and economic wellbeing.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T19:31:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Meyre Ivone Santana da Silva.pdf: 775031 bytes, checksum: 04d5c85cec4cddd73f9b9a531d3fdf26 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-12-13 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This paper intends to analyse the African female literary expression as a significant contribution to an alteration in the literary scenario of the Anglophone African countries. African female writers works contribute to the process of history rewriting and the reconstruction of female images in the African societies. Ama ata Aidoo is one these women writers that contribute to the development of an african feminist theory. African feminists fight against neocolonial powers and tradional structures that constitute some mountains to women lives / Este trabalho pretende analisar a expressão literária feminina africana como contribuição significativa para uma alteração no panorama da literatura dos países africanos de expressão inglesa. As obras destas escritoras contribuem para o processo de reescritura da história e reconstrução da imagem das mulheres nas sociedades africanas. Ama Ata Aidoo é uma destas mulheres que contribuem para a formulação de uma teoria feminista africana. As femininstas africanas lutam contra os poderes neocoloniais e as estruturas tradicionais que funcionam como montanhas na vida das mulheres