Historical Re-Memories and Postcolonial Reality in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Early Novels

As a historical, economical, as well as political discourse that has acutely and epistemologically drawn the intellectual attention of political scientists, historians and the economists for ages, colonialism has been the postcolonial discourse that has profoundly attracted the literary critics over the years as well. This paper explores the postcolonial discourse in Ngugi’s early novels namely; Weep Not Child, The River Between and A Grain of Wheat. It argues that albeit numerous literary writers have portrayed myriad of faces of colonialism in their masterpieces, it demonstrates that colonialism only wears a postcolonial mark, when viewed through the theoretical “viewfinders” of Aime Ceasire, Frantz Fanon, Albert Memi, Edward Said, Kwame Nkrumah, VI Lenin, Arif Derilic, Robert Young, exempli gratia.

Keywords: Colonialism Postcolonial Discourse Ngugi Early Novels

Authors

• Nasir Umar Abdullahi
  Department of English and French,
  Umaru Musa Yar’adua University,
  Katsina-State
  nasir.umar@umyu.edu.ng
• Ado Magaji Mansur
  Department of English and Literary Studies,
  Northwest University Kano.
  ammansur@nwu.edu.ng
• Fatima Abdullahi
  Department of History and Security Studies,
  Umaru Musa Yar’adua University,
  Katsina-State