This book provides an important critical analysis of the autobiographies of nine major leaders of national liberation movements in Africa. By examining their self-narratives, we can better understand how decolonisation unfolded and how activist-politicians sought to immortalise their roles for posterity.
Focusing on the autobiographies of Peter Abrahams, Albert Luthuli, Ruth First and Nelson Mandela (South Africa), Nnamdi Azikiwe (Nigeria), Kenneth Kaunda (Zambia), George Mwase (Malawi), Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana), Maurice Nyagumbo (Zimbabwe), and Oginga Odinga (Kenya), the book uncovers the social and cultural forces which galvanized the anti-colonial resistance movement in African societies. In particular, the book explores the disdain for foreign domination, economic exploitation and cultural imperialism. It delves into themes of African cultural sovereignty before the colonial encounter, the disruptive presence of colonialism, the nationalist ferment against European imperial domination, the achievement of political autonomy by African nation-states and the corpus of contradictions which attended postcolonial becoming.
With important insights on how these key historical figures navigated the process of self-determining nationhood in Africa, this book will be of interest to researchers of African literature, history, and politics.
Author(s): David Ekanem Udoinwang, James Tar Tsaaior
Series: Routledge Studies in African Literature
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 212
City: London
Cover
Endorsement
Half Title
Series Information
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
1 Introduction: Autobiographies, Colonisation and Decolonisation
Works Cited
2 Autobiography, Self-Making and National Be-Coming: From Theory to Practice
Works Cited
3 Imagining a Continental Statehood: The Autobiographies of Kwame Nkrumah and Nnamdi Azikiwe
Kwame Nkrumah and the Pan-Africanist Ferment
Nnamdi Azikiwe and the Pan-Africanist Ideal in MO
Works Cited
4 Narrating Violence and Non-Violence as Roadmaps to Nationhood: Not Yet Uhuru (NYU), Strike a Blow and Die (SBD) and Zambia Shall Be Free (ZSBF)
Odinga and the Peasant Land Resistance in Kenya
Mwase and the Responsibility to Martyrdom for National Liberation
Kaunda and the Non-Violent Liberationist Ethos
Works Cited
5 Narrating Apartheid State Violence: The Autobiographies of Albert Luthuli and Nelson Mandela
Luthuli and the Prophetic Proclamation for Freedom
Mandela as Metaphor for the Anti-Apartheid Struggle
Works Cited
6 ‘The Negro Is Not Free’: Visualising a Humane Nationhood in Peter Abrahams’ Tell Freedom and Maurice Nyagumbo’s With the People
Abrahams and the Performance of Racial Antinomies
Nyagumbo, Radical Consciousness and the Quest for Freedom
Works Cited
7 Life Narratives, the Female Voice and the National Liberation Experience: Ruth First’s 117 Days: An Account of Confinement and Interrogation Under the South African 90-Days Detention Law
Works Cited
8 Conclusion: African Autobiographies, Memory and the Making of Nationhood
Works Cited
Index
