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Nativity and Africans in the New Global World

Abdul-Rasheed Na’Allah, Western Illinois University

Once in a presentation in Toulouse, France, Wole Soyinka, who had escaped from Abatcha's butchering dagger to exile in America, rejected the claim that he was actually in exile. "My spirit never left Nigeria," he insisted. “To be in exile, mind and body must be there. My mind remains in Nigeria.” Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiong'O and Tess Onwueme, all African writers in America would, like Soyinka, drum the bell of their “in-spirit” rootedness to Africa while energetically globalizing from the cyber-spots of their American offices, an act less available to writers and scholars physically living in Nigeria or Kenya. Exploring from my interviews of Achebe and Ngugi and drawing widely from these and other author's writings, this paper will propose why exiled African writers reflecting on a global mirror from America or Europe still assert a claim to a "native rootedness" into their postcolonial Africa. Yet, in what language is the game of African nativity played by these contemporary globalized Africans?

Abstract

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Africa Conference 2006: Movements, Migrations and Displacements in Africa
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