A) What is an African Novel? The emergency of a very large corpus of the African novels in both French and English has been one of the most interesting literary developments of the last twenty-five years. It is perhaps inevitable that the movement towards self-determination, and the emergency into prominence of a powerful, well educated, and articulate elite, would result in a number of works of art designed to express the strength, validity and beauty of African life and culture. Some of the earliest novelists include Tutuola, Camara Laye and Chinwa Achebe. The African novel refers to extended works of fiction produced by writers of African nationality or voluntary self identification, it does not necessarily include works set in the African continent works produced by people with African names or works produced in an African language. The novel today is a dominate literacy genre. Most of the African novel is in the European language due to European colonisation of the continent form the 16th to the 20th Century. The countries that emerged form British colonialism have been the most productive as far as the African novel is convened with Nigeria being the pre-eminent amongst them with writers like Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka and Amos Tutola. Magical realism is a genre of art, literature and performance in which elements of fantastic are presented within the context of very real scenes and events within comments. This artistic genre emerged in Latin American with some notable figure like Salvador Dali and Luis Borges. Magical realism is often extremely serious which contains embedded commentary about art, culture and human nature. It is characterised by paradoxical events that never fully explained by the author and are accepted as normal. Professor Mathew Stretcher defines magical realism as “what happens when a highly detailed, realistic setting, is invaded by something too strong to believe.” From the text below The Palm Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutola we will realise magical realism. Magical realism is seen through the Drinkard who undergoes a huge transformation which is not physical but spiritual. This is due to the fact that at the beginning of the novel, we see him as a very useless person who can only drink palm wine but towards the end of the novel due to the dead of his palm tapster, he becomes useful to himself and his community through the journey as he tricks men, gods and at the end he saves many people. Magical realism is also perceived as Amos Tutola creates a world of love where human beings mingled freely with beings form the spirits worlds. This shows a relationship between the two worlds. It is a world in which animals, vegetation and spirits are frequently given human attributes whereas human beings are endowed with supernatural powers like the drunkard in the “Skull family house,” transforms into a lizard and air while saving girl and the skull guarding her using a whistle like a human being. This portrays the concepts of magical realism. The using of gods and juju by the Drinkard to invoke powers bringing forth magical realism. The drink transform into a bird and goes to the old man’s house to know what he wanted form the blacksmith. He went and took the bell from the black smith and the old man and his wife is surprised. The Drinkard further uses juju to invoke powers in the house of the skull as he transforms into a lizard and air to save the young girl. He uses his juju to prove to the man that he’s the father of the gods. Magical realism again is proven when we find the skull man borrowing parts of body to make him a complete gentle man. Hence, this shows that all that glitters is not gold so in the society today, we need to be contented with what we have. In a nutshell, the focal point in magical realism is not the dreamlike and supernatural elements that appear but rather the real world that serves as the framework for the text, as such, the Drinkard through his journey tricks men and spirits. Save people and be useful. Thanks to his tapster’s death he undergoes a transformation hence, magical realism. Presented by Marie Luma
Posted on: Tue, 11 Jun 2013 11:39:39 +0000
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