Dictators, Dictatorship and the African Novel: Fictions of the State under Neoliberalism (New Comparisons in World Literature)

This book examines the representation of dictators and dictatorships in African fiction. It examines how the texts clarify the origins of postcolonial dictatorships and explore the shape of the democratic-egalitarian alternatives. The first chapter explains the ‘neoliberal’ period after the 1970s as an effective ‘recolonization’ of Africa by Western states and international financial institutions. Dictatorship is theorised as a form of concentrated economic and political power that facilitates Africa’s continued dependency in the context of world capitalism. The deepest aspiration of anti-colonial revolution remains the democratization of these authoritarian states inherited from the colonial period. This book discusses four novels by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Ahmadou Kourouma, Chinua Achebe and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in order to reveal how their themes and forms dramatize this unfinished struggle between dictatorship and radical democracy. Acknowledgments......Page 6 Contents......Page 7 About the author......Page 9 1 Introduction: The Unfinished Project of Decolonisation......Page 10 References......Page 42 2 Neoliberalism and the ‘Recolonisation’ of Africa......Page 46 The Origins of Dictatorship......Page 49 ‘Virtual Democracy’......Page 59 Africa’s Unfinished Revolution......Page 66 ‘1968’, le debut d’une lutte prolongée......Page 75 Bibliography......Page 91 3 Performance and Power I: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s Wizard of the Crow......Page 97 Art at War with the State......Page 101 Performing the State in the Era of Structural Adjustment......Page 109 Wizard of the Crow and a Democracy of Readers......Page 127 Bibliography......Page 144 4 Performance and Power II: Ahmadou Kourouma’s Waiting for the Wild Beasts to Vote......Page 149 Rupture or Continuity?......Page 152 A Poem in Praise of the Dictator......Page 157 The Fetishism of Power......Page 165 Dictatorship ‘Goes On and On’......Page 173 ‘A Praxis That Has Yet to Begin’......Page 180 References......Page 188 5 Allegories of Dictatorship in Nigerian Fiction: Chinua Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus......Page 191 Allegory as a Method of Reading......Page 192 Nigeria, Under-Development and the State......Page 199 Preparation for Praxis: Anthills of the Savannah......Page 204 Training for Democratic Citizenship: Purple Hibiscus......Page 222 Totality and Transformation......Page 241 Bibliography......Page 252 6 Conclusion: The Counter-Counter-Revolution......Page 256 References......Page 277 Index......Page 280 This book examines the representation of dictators and dictatorships in African fiction. It examines how the texts clarify the origins of postcolonial dictatorships and explore the shape of the democratic-egalitarian alternatives. The first chapter explains the 'neoliberal' period after the 1970s as an effective 'recolonization' of Africa by Western states and international financial institutions. Dictatorship is theorised as a form of concentrated economic and political power that facilitates Africa's continued dependency in the context of world capitalism. The deepest aspiration of anti-colonial revolution remains the democratization of these authoritarian states inherited from the colonial period. This book discusses four novels by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Ahmadou Kourouma, Chinua Achebe and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in order to reveal how their themes and forms dramatize this unfinished struggle between dictatorship and radical democracy. Robert Spencer is Senior Lecturer in Postcolonial Literatures and Cultures at the University of Manchester, UK. He is the author of Cosmopolitan Criticism and Postcolonial Literature (2011) and the co-author of For Humanism: Explorations in Theory and Politics, with David Alderson (2017), and co-author of Postcolonial Locations: New Directions in Postcolonial Studies, with Anastasia Valassopoulos (2020).