Narrating tyranny in Alain Mabanckou’s Memoirs of a Porcupine
Keywords:
anarchy, criticism, diaspora, immigrant, magical realism, tyrannyAbstract
Magical realism has been employed as a form of narration in African written literature most notably in the novels The Famished Road (1991), Wizard of the Crow (2006), The Palm-Wine Drinkard (1952), Woman of Aeroplanes (1988) and The Healers (1978) some of which have been adapted into films that have received critical acclaim. Alain Mabanckou can be considered within the framework of this literary tradition, as this paper aptly demonstrates. All the same, it is important to note from the outset that there has been either little critical concern with magical realist writing in African literature or it has been addressed merely as the remains of a precolonial mythical consciousness making incursions into the world of the realist story. This paper examines the engagement of magical realism in Mabanckou’s fiction with specific focus on Memoirs of a Porcupine. The paper explores the use of magical realism as a trope that enables one to understand several pertinent issues such as abuse of power and political intolerance. This reading has enabled us to have a nuanced understanding of magical realism as a trope. The overarching argument is that magical realism is not just a mere trope employed in the chosen literary texts but is a literary technique as well as a tool of narrating tyranny.
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