Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / In this study I focus on how Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s fiction portrays his socio-political vision through the prevalence of the intimate relationships it displays. The study critically analyses the significant role romantic love and friendship play in the novels The River Between (1965), Weep Not, Child (1964), A Grain of Wheat (1967), Petals of Blood (1977), Devil on the Cross (1982), Matigari (1987) and Wizard of the Crow (2006) against the backdrop of Ngũgĩ’s other fiction, plays and non-fiction. Ngũgĩ identifies himself as a Marxist, anti-colonialist/imperialist, and anti-capitalist writer, for whom there is no contradiction between aesthetic and political missions. The aesthetic and political projects take form through the representation, very importantly, of romantic love in his fiction. The significance of eros, which is clear in the fiction, is not, however, present in Ngũgĩ’s theoretical reflections on his writing as formulated in his essays. In Ngũgĩ’s early novels, we see love attempting to break the boundaries of religion and class in the creation of a modern nation-state. But there are obstacles to these attempts at national unity through love, the only relationship apart from friendship that is self-made, and not determined by kinship relations. In the fiction from the middle of Ngũgĩ’s career, we see romantic love consummated in marriage. The achievement of unity is, however, undercut by betrayal, which is a repeated theme in all the novels. The “betrayal” of the ideal of romantic love by materialism is the most significant threat to love. Friendship emerges in one of the later novels as a kind of “excursus” to romantic love that foregrounds, by default, the ways in which Ngũgĩ’s political vision seeks be consolidated through the personal relationship of romantic love. In Ngũgĩ’s final novel, we see his personal and political visions coming together in a utopian erotic union for first time. Because of the nature of the exploration, which aims at opening up the wider significance of eros, the study is not framed by a dominant theory, most of which would lead to understanding eros through gender and power relations. Instead, the study has been framed through concepts and debates on romantic love that emerge in sociology, anthropology, philosophy and literary history.

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This dissertation explores the literary practices located at the intersection between the national and the transnational, discussing transnational narrative spaces as a type of writing that operates outside the national canon. In The Remains of the Day, the problematic narrative that Ishiguro creates can be analyzed in terms of Bakhtin's notion of parodic stylization. Ishiguro reproduces complete images, languages, and ideological belief systems in Bakhtinian parodic stylization and leads the reader to a conclusion that displaces radically the point of view of the narrator. In The Pickup, Gordimer explores transnational identity within a global setting, gesturing toward some kind of transnational identity that dislocates any stable identity formation and signification system in the framework of the nation-state or "Empire." Gordimer imagines and articulates such a revolutionary transformation, especially focusing on the issue of "relocation." The "in-between" area of translation is interrogated as a space where transnational identity is formed both in Morrison's Beloved and Lee's Native Speaker. In Beloved, Morrison is specifically conscious of the representation of slaves by the Master's language, and her literary attempt to examine the process of this problematic representation can be viewed in terms of a particular type of translation practice: a translation of a political, social, and cultural minority into the language of the majority. Chang-rae Lee's Native Speaker does not narrate the production of a fully constituted national subject, but shifts in perspective from a nationally oriented narrative of immigration to a fragmented, transnational narrative. The particular construction of transnational identity that re-imagines a particular mode of crossing the Asian American identity is made and unmade through the metaphor of "translator." All the novels embody in various literary forms the possible models for a transnational fiction whose agenda is mainly dissidence/negation and nomadic mobility. Such literary attempts for dissidence/negation should be regarded not in terms of a breakdown, but rather in terms of an opening-up of signification with a new permissiveness that affords the opportunity for alternative meanings and relationships.

This project examines the presence of African-derived spiritual ideals within the black literary tradition as a means of highlighting the fundamental influence of spirituality on communities of the modern black diaspora. I begin the discussion with an examination of traditional African spirituality, focusing on Nigerian author Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart (1958). This discussion identifies four core principles of traditional African spirituality that resonate most thoroughly in diasporan communities: the interconnection of sacred and secular spheres, the concept of cyclical rather than linear time, the emphasis on a communal ethos, and the necessity for balance and reconciliation. I then examine the development of what I define as "Black Diasporan Spirituality," considering how these principles, resonating to varying degrees, constitute the basis for a philosophical system defining the universe and the place and role of mankind within it, as understood by African-descended peoples throughout the diaspora. Subsequently, I discuss the ways in which core elements of black spirituality at once inform and are represented in literature produced in Africa and the diaspora. Beginning with an analysis of James Weldon Johnson's God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse (1927) and Zora Neale Hurston's Jonah's Gourd Vine (1934), I examine "Black Diasporan Spirituality" as a defining influence on the black oral tradition, centering my discussion on the cultural articulation of the African American song sermon. Using James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953) and The Amen Corner (1954), I then examine the consequences of religious practice in the absence of black spiritual ideals. Focusing on the presence of spirituality in spaces which are not formally designated as religious, I then consider Gloria Naylor's Mama Day (1988) as a narrative that positions "Black Diasporan Spirituality" as vital to the healing processes of black communities, addressing both the trauma and the reconciliation inherent in the construction of diaspora. Ultimately, this dissertation argues that a clear understanding of the nature and character of black spirituality is essential to understanding not only the literature, but also the many circumstances—historical, social and cultural—of the communities out of which each text emerges.

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Defined as a stage of history that began in the Western world before spreading around the world, modernity has proven to be a controversial concept for many scholars and critics. This thesis revisits the treatment of modernity in Francophone postcolonial Africa through the novels of three Francophone African women authors: Ken Bugul, Werewere Liking and the late Angèle Rawiri. Drawing on a corpus of ten novels (Orphée Dafric, Elle sera de jaspe et de corail, La Memoire amputée by Werewere Liking ; G'amarakano, Fureur et cris des femmes by Angèle Rawiri ; Le Baobab fou, De l'autre côté de regard, Rue Felix Faure, La Folie et la mort, Mes Hommes à moi, by Ken Bugul) ; I explore how these literary texts position modernity as a central question in the present and future of Africa. My analysis examines how, in their novels, these authors represent current problems for African identity. Where modernity entails a discontinuity between past and present that creates emptiness, memory emerges as an important chain of transmission of knowledge. Ken Bugul and Werewere Liking also highlight the madness of those with postcolonial political power, and the consequences for the people, who themselves become mad because of the actions of leaders. Angèle Rawiri's novels emphasize the dislocation of self amid the paradoxes of modernity in Africa, through the fragmentation of her writing and her depiction of a suffering female body. These authors depict the postcolonial space as a problematic environment. Affecting young women and men most directly, it features an unending quest for identity that is exemplified most strikingly by Ken Bugul's depictions of estranged, wandering protagonists. My study ends with a discussion of gender issues as these authors explore the traps and pitfalls of modernity through their female characters' dilemmas. In the process, they point out how the use of a Western feminist approach to read African women's novels may be another paradox of modernity. My alternative reading takes into account the realities of African women in order to rethink social problems. It also makes deeper understanding of African identity a matter of viewing through local lenses.

The Universal theme of Water, both the Sea as well as the Rain in literature reaches a dimension of Cult in Cape Verdean literature and it is an important part of the Cape Verdean identity. Water is of the utmost importance at several levels for Cape Verde: an archipelago surrounded by water and yet about half of its population has to immigrate due to the lack of rain. These two facts play an important role in the complex bi-polar Cape Verdean identity struggling between the desire to emigrate connoted with the Sea and the desire to stay connoted with the Rain. The present study aims to analyze, compare and contrast the major literary works of Cape Verdean Literature from the Claridade period (1936) to Post-Colonial period (1975) and extends until 1990 with the publication of Germano Almeida first novel O Testamento do Sr. Napumoceno da Silva Araújo which coincides with the end of the mono party system in Cape Verde. The other authors and works focused on this study are: Jorge Barbosa: Arquipélago (1935), Ambiente (1941), Caderno de um Ilhéu (1956); Manuel Lopes: Poemas de quem ficou (1949), Crioulo e outros poemas (1964), Chuva Braba (1956), Os Flagelados do Vento Leste (1960), Galo Cantou na Baía (1959); Corsino Fortes: Pão & Fonema (1974), Árvore & Tambor (1986), Pedras de Sol & Substância (2001); Baltasar Lopes: Chiquinho (1947), Os Trabalhos e os Dias (1987). This study also makes references to four authors before the Claridade period: Eugénio Tavares, Pedro Monteiro Cardoso, Januário Leite and José Lopes.