From exile to aesthetization of displacement: a comparative analysis of "Americanah" and "Ghana must go"
Keywords:
aesthetization of displacement, exile, identity, Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie, Taiye SelasiCopyright (c) 2018 ACTIO NOVA: Revista de Teoría de la Literatura y Literatura Comparada
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Abstract
Writers living and writing about rootlessness have been developing a distinctive trend within the traditional literature of exile, in which the nostalgic perspective of being unable to return home is replaced by one that calls «home» anywhere in the world. Two novels that address this issue in detail are Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie, and Ghana Must Go, by Taiye Selasi. This article sets out to analyse to what extent the perception of this new backdrop of homelessness differs from traditional exile, as well as how a new aesthetization of displacement or rootlessness poses questions to the narrative and to the identity of the characters in the novels. The theory developed by several authors in the realm of cultural studies has guided the comparison with a view to achieving the proposed objective.
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References
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