The Work of Memory as a ‘Counter-Discursive Strategy’ in Ngugi’s, Armah’s and Morrison’s Fictional works

Abstract:

The aim of this paper is to shed light on the motives of the African and African-American writers’ work of memory. It focuses on both historical and cultural memory as counter-discourse. The major contention held in this paper is that these writers’ politics of memory has a subversive dimension. The paper argues that the African writers’ work of memory has a twofold purpose:  to ‘strike back’ at the colonial powers and to ‘speak truth to power’. There is also an attempt at drawing a brief comparative study of the work of memory of African and African-American writers. The paper particularly focuses on these writers’ dramatization of the Middle Passage.  It, besides, explores the issue of Afrocentric historiography as ‘counter-memory’. There is, further, an attempt at pondering the issue of objectivity in memory works.