Lecznar, Matthew (2018) “We all stand before history”: (re)locating Saro-Wiwa in the Biafran war canon. Research in African Literatures, 48 (4). ISSN 0034-5210

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Abstract

Since Ken Saro-Wiwa’s execution in 1995, critical accounts of his intellectual legacy have tended to focus on the influence of the Ogoni struggle on his writing, and as a consequence have overlooked the role played by the Nigeria-Biafra war in the development of his intellectual sensibility. Given that Saro-Wiwa worked as a government administrator during the war, and wrote a novel, a memoir, and a book of poetry in response to the conflict, this article works to relocate his legacy in the trajectory of Biafran war literature. By exploring Saro-Wiwa’s negotiation of ideas of canon and history in his Biafran war writing, this article argues that the civil war is a traumatic but transformative preoccupation of his literary and political work. In doing so, it draws on theoretical insights about the self-reflexive narration of history and trauma, and engages with the potential for poetry to textually re-embody marginalized voices.

Item Type:	Article
Schools and Departments:	School of English > English
Research Centres and Groups:	Centre for Colonial and Postcolonial Studies
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PE English P Language and Literature > PL Languages and literatures of Eastern Asia, Africa, Oceania > PL8000 African languages and literature
Depositing User:	Matthew Lecznar
Date Deposited:	12 Dec 2017 10:15
Last Modified:	11 Apr 2018 09:45
URI:	http://srodev.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/72003

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