So my life is all about African literature this semester. Most of things I've read are pretty depressing and culturally startling, but good for me to read, I think. Definitely an area I'd recommend delving into.
What I've read:
The Joys of Motherhood - Buchi Emecheta
Houseboy - Ferdinand Oyono
The Dark Child - Cameron Laye
The Abandoned Boabab - Ken Bugul
Nervous Conditions - Tsitsi Dangarembga
Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
Plus maybe something else that I can't remember.
Anyway, so I'm doing a giant research paper for one of my classes, and I'm writing about
Nervous Conditions. Here's an abstract that I wrote today (kind of needlessly - long story). So if you want to know what it might possibly be about when I actually write it, read it! And give me feedback! Encourage me! Offer me rewards for working on it!
Here it is:
Intercultural interactions are notoriously sensitive and have been problematic throughout history. In a world that is becoming increasingly aware of the potential disasters involved in cross-cultural relationships and increasingly bent on preventing them, it is difficult yet constructive to process past events that are poor examples of successful intercultural relationships. A prominent event on this list of failures is colonization of the Americas, Africa, and Asia by Western powers.
In this spirit of retrospection, Tsitsi Dangarmbga’s novel Nervous Conditions tackles the enormous problems inherent in colonial societies as they occur in Southern Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe) in the 1960s. Her narrator and main character Tambu shows readers her black and white world through the eyes of a Shona schoolgirl. Tambu’s colonial experience doesn’t involve governmental authorities, regulations, and injustice, but missional authorities and regulations. Through her we see the good and the bad of life on the mission and the enormous complications it presents for those who try to partake of both missional and Shona society.
Dangarembga’s idea that juggling two standards of behavior causes strain in colonized communities, families, and individuals and her connection of these double standards with missional institutions need exploration that examines concrete historical examples of mission organizations acting as colonial forces as well as the missionaries’ points of view. Using my research I hope to create a historical background to interpret the novel and also use the novel to bring light to historical accounts of missionaries and their activities. How can natives’ negative experiences be reconciled with the good intentions that many missionaries and their supports had? What cultural and political miscommunications added to already touchy situations?
