From the Present to the Past: Redemptive Authority of History in Octavia Butler’s Kindred (Published)
The present paper aims to validate the idea that history is a foundational site of redemption. Through anachronistic traumatic journeys that take place in the present, Octavia Butler’s Kindred establishes symbolic and critical connections between past and present. Using magical realism, a counter hegemonic style, the novel blurs binary oppositions, such as past and present, dominant and dominated, questioning notions of hierarchy and dominance, and above all subverting the official reality of slavery. In re-enacting slavery, this historical narrative constructs a linkage across time and race, and conceives the relevance of the racial past. Drawing on the postmodern slave narrative framework, we trace the process whereby the main character submits to the position of slave and at the same time incorporates in the historical narrative representation her sense of self – her subjectification. This experiential position facilitates the construction of a counter hegemonic knowledge that undermines the master narrative of slavery.
Citation: Koffi Eugene N’guessan (2022) From the Present to the Past: Redemptive Authority of History in Octavia Butler’s Kindred, European Journal of English Language and Literature Studies, Vol.10, No.1, pp.16-30
Keywords: Masochism, Slavery, history, magical realism, past, present, redemption
Transcultural libanité in Amin Maalouf’s Origines (Published)
This article critically engages with Amin Maalouf’s novel Origines (2004). By drawing implicitly on Mikhail Epstein’s theory of transculture, I intend to explore the libanité paradigm, and to examine how it shapes the view of the Lebanese subject towards the West. By libanité, I refer to the religious and political elements that are central in defining Lebanese ethnic identity. I argue that within the Lebanese context, the transcultural process is not limited to immigrant characters who live in the West, but also it emerges in subjects who decide not to leave their homeland. What distinguishes this paper is its analysis of the relaxed, nomadic attitude adopted by characters when faced with issues linked to cultural allegiance. They appear to be ‘in place’ and ‘out of place’ whether they stay in Lebanon or decide to be geographically dislocated to a Western country. Furthermore, the main country of destination discussed in this novel is Cuba, which history has been mainly examined on the experiences of the Atlantic Slave Trade, and its impact on the Caribbean society. In terms of migration, therefore, very little investigation exists on the early 20th century Arab migration into Cuba. Maalouf’s Origines gives voice to Arabs to speak about their experience with the new island. On a larger scale, this introduces a new dimension to the study of minority communities from Muslim-majority Eastern regions who reside in the Caribbean societies today. This is a salient issue in the islands to develop further their cultural diversity.
Keywords: Identity, Migration, history, maalouf, transculture
Amitav Ghosh’s “history” is a threshold in Re-Constructing National and Cultural Identity: A Study (Published)
As is well-known, history is often shaped by the socio-political perspectives of the Colonizers and therefore, the narratives generated by colonial history must utilize both the author’s imagination and empirical or factual research to create a broader view of historical reality. Amitav Ghosh, one of the most promising Indian writers writing in English has amazingly blended “history” with fiction which is profoundly attached to the re-construction of identity of the people in our postcolonial world. Indeed, one of the important concerns of historical reconstruction in modern third world literature is re-imagining the cultural cartography through the re-formation of national and cultural identities in the wake of emerging nation-states in the post imperial era. This paper clearly indicates how colonial history is incisively connected to the question of reforming national and cultural identity in today’s postcolonial reality.
Keywords: Globalization, Postcolonialism, east-west trope, geographical boundary, history, national and cultural identity
Righting/Rewriting Arab History in Arab American Narrative (Published)
Arab nation is one of the most ancient nations in the world. Their history goes back to The Bronze Age (3200–1300 BC). However, such a history is totally distorted as it was written according to the whims of the colonizers. Arab history has been massively transformed; their culture deprecated and entirely disparaged; their wealth plundered. However, some Arab and Arab-American writers have started a mission to rewrite the deformed history of Arabs. One of these writers is Samia Serageldin, whose novel The Naqib’s Daughter is a rewriting of the French invasion of Egypt in 1798. The present article argues that Egyptian history has been defaced by the colonial powers and that Serageldin has succeeded in bringing to light the false claims of the colonists. The article maintains that the novel is a counter-discursive postcolonial novel, in which Serageldin attempts to right and rewrite the history of Egypt from the point of view of Egyptians themselves. The article aims also at analyzing The Naqib’s Daughter in terms of the contemporary political developments in the Arab world and the role played by world superpowers in shaping and reshaping the contemporary history.
Keywords: Colonialism, Egypt, French invasion, history, rewriting