Building a Nation: Examining the evolution of „nation‟ in postcolonial African literature

Abstract

The concept of the „nation‟ and „nation building‟ has been a salient part of Postcolonial African literature. Countering the predominant white mainstream narratives that distort the reality of the colonized, postcolonial African literature often strives to show the „real‟ essence of African culture and people. Research studies have been done before focusing on the concept of nation in postcolonial literature of Africa and postcolonial literature as a whole. However, the efforts in research studies to understand the growing changes in the idea of nation within postcolonial texts, especially with relation to modern multiculturalism, remain limited. Thus a need to explore literature that discusses the idea of nation within the context of the globalized world of the twenty first century was identified. The aim of this study is to identify the evolution of politics of nation and nation building in African literature using two African texts; the book Things Fall Apart (1958) by Chinua Achebe and the movie Black Panther (2018) directed by Ryan Coogler. The methodology of the research study includes a close literary analysis with a comparative reading of the two texts. Specifically, in the course of analyzing the texts, postcolonial critical theories, the concept on the Nation state by Franz Fanon and theories on hybridity by Homi K. Bhabha have been referred to. At the end of the research study, the changes in the attempts to conceptualize the idea of nation within postcolonial literature over time will be identified. Furthermore, it will explore the evolution of the concept of nation spanning from the immediate context of decolonization to the modern times. The study hopes to provide a new understanding on the idea of nation building and national identity in the contemporary world.