Publication details
Tradice a modernita v románech Amose Tutuoly, ChinuyAchebe a Cypriana Ekwensiho
| Title in English | The Traditional and the Modern in the Novels of Amos Tutuola, Chinua Achebe and Cyprian Ekwensi |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2012 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Proudy: středoevropský časopis pro vědu a literaturu |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Field | Linguistics |
| Keywords | African literature; Tutuola; Achebe; Ekwensi; modernity; tradition |
| Description | The aim of this article is to discuss "traditional" and "modern" features of four African novels. The four novels analysed a in this debate are Amos Tutuola's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts and Palm-Wine Drinkard and his Dead Palm-Wine Tapster in the Deads' Town, Chinua Achebe's Anthills of the Savannah and Cyprian Ekwensi's Jagua Nana. The debate is based on the juxtaposition of the two texts by Amos Tutuola, which draw more directly from the older African tradition on an oral transmission of folk-takes, with Ekwensi's and Achebe's works that are set in modern Africa (1960s and 1980s respectively) and resemble more closely in their form the European novel. The central claim of this article is the confutation of the idea that "the traditional"and "the modern" are identical with the African and Western cultural tradition. Although many modern features of contemporary Africa were formed under the influence of European colonial expansion, it does not automatically form inauthenticity of experience in contemporary African environment. In this respect, the analysis is representative of the current developments in postcolonial studies in the increasingly interconnected globalized world. |