Considering Multicultural Coexistence from the Perspective of African Literature

アフリカ　ブンガク　カラ　タブンカ　キョウセイ　ヲ　カンガエル

カンダ, マイコ

Kanda, Maiko

オオサカ ダイガク ミライ センリャク キコウ ダイゴ ブモン ミライ キョウセイ イノベーター ハクシ カテイ プログラム

英語圏アフリカ

ポストコロニアリズム

多言語状況

英語

多文化共生

African literature

anglophone Africa

postcolonialism

English

multilingual situation

multicultural coexistence (tabunka kyosei)

As a result of colonization, the structural multilingual situation in which a colonial language was superior to local African languages was established in Africa. Under this situation, African novelists wrote their literary works in English so as to regain self-respect among African people. Despite the top priority of writing in English being for their own people, African novels written in English tended to be accepted in developed countries more as non-fiction writings that were exposing the severe circumstances rising out of mismanagement by African politicians after their independence. This perspective of interpreting the literature was a variation of the colonial gaze at Africa which pitted it on the opposite side to the West, viewing it as “abhorrent.” However, the situation has changed. With the development of the concept of post-colonialism since the 1990’s, literary creations and literary critiques have interacted and increased their power resulting in fierce objections to that Western eye. African literature in English is one of the examples of multicultural coexistence at work. It is important that African literature in English emerged in the political, historical and cultural space between the West and Africa. Additionally, that intervening space couldn’t have been there without the vulnerable side walking toward the stronger side. Since the world was divided into two sides, such as the colonizer/ the colonized, the developed/the developing and the haves/ the have nots, the former has been required to reach out and touch the hither side of the latter, which is abundant with diversity and contemporaneity beyond the intervening space.