Narrativas da diversidade africana: fragmentos, memória e resistência em Black mamba boy e The orchard of lost souls, de Nadifa Mohamed e A grain of wheat, de Ngugi wa Thiong'o

Abstract

This work analyzed Nadifa Mohamed's Black Mamba Boy and The Orchard of Lost Souls, Ngugi wa Thiong'o's A Grain of Wheat, as well as the testimonies of Somali women published in Somalia-The Untold Story: The War Through the Eyes of Somali Women (2004), which were listed as one of the references that inspired the writing of The Orchard of Lost Souls. In these African narratives written in English, it was investigated the various forms of cross-cultural translation of African diversity, more specifically Kenyan and Somali, in view of the colonial and post-colonial context that serve as a backdrop in the works studied. The research reveals the potentialities of African literature in English as a potent and effective means of fragments weaving, creative manifestation of underground memories and resistance, which materializes mainly through the contestation and erasure of historically marginalizing narratives. In addition to the plurivocality, heterogeneity and complex constitutive intersections of the works analyzed, representations of various forms of agency among Somali women were also observed. The analyzes were carried out based on postcolonial and decolonial theories. The choice of this approach is justified by the need and urgency to reveal and produce knowledge about the various forms of representation and inscription of African subjects and their experiences, which have been deliberately stereotyped and erased by the colonial library