AWEJ Special Issue on Literature No.1 Pp.296 – 302
The Work of Memory as a ‘Counter-Discursive Strategy’ in Ngugi’s, Armah’s
and Morrison’s Fictional works
Malika BOUHADIBA
Oran University, Algeria
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.
Keywords: Afrocentric Historiography, counter-discourse, Memory, Mau Mau, Slavery .