Magical realism as a narrative strategy for representing tyranny in selected fiction of Alain Mabanckou

Abstract

This study examines the deployment of magical realism as a trope of narrating political tyranny in Alain Mabanckou’s novels namely, Memoirs of a Porcupine, Broken Glass, Black Bazaar, Blue White Red and African Psycho. The study employs qualitative narrative research design where data is drawn from primary and secondary written texts. This entails a close reading and interpretation of the selected texts using Gennette Gerard’s narratology which provides a systematic approach to narrative enabling the reader appreciate how texts make meaning. Homi Bhabha’s postcolonial theory which examines the ways in which writers from colonised countries attempt to articulate and even celebrate their cultural identities and reclaim them from the colonisers has been engaged in the analysis of the texts as postcolonial literature. The findings of this study reveal that Mabanckou engages the opposing ontologies of magical and reality to satirise tyranny, to push and sustain narrative, to entertain readers through humorous fantasy, and to develop central themes of political and social concerns. Additionally, Mabanckou’s use of scatology presents filth as a symbol in the narrative of disillusionment in post-colonial Africa. The study highlights Mabanckou’s use of magical realism and scatology as literary tropes to interrogate deep-seated postcolonial issues, proving the literary landscape as a vibrant, effective and accessible space for humanistic studies. The research contributes to studies on Mabanckou’s fiction and to studies on magical realism in African novels. The study recommends that a comparative study on Mabanckou’s work be done vis-a -vis the writings of other emerging African writers so as to expose and extrapolate fully the significance of magical realism as a trope of writing. Postmodernist analyses could also be done in his other novels so as to determine influences in his writing.