Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2009
Abstract
Postcolonial discourses describe colonization as a process of invention to impose the will of a conquering West on "backward" societies. The will to power conjugated with the need for row materials served as the main catalysts. They put side by side a hegemonic intruder bent on duplicating itself, and a powerless and compliant native unable to react to the blitz of transformations. Hence, the master/slave or father/child relationships that describe the colonial framework. The task is to interrogate these generally accepted assumptions and binary oppositions. Although marginalized, the Congolese native was unwilling to become on object for the colonizer's gaze. In fact, the inability to expel the "invader" did not prevent the creation of legitimacies out of what was precipitously brought in. This mechanism of transformation is perceptible in Paul Lomami Tchibamba's novel Ngando (1948), the object of this study. Ngando's imagined colonial city stands out as a site of contrasts and contradictions. However, the duplicated model shows the "transformability" of the new space into "normalcy" by a subversive native.
Recommended Citation
Kapanga, Kasongo Mulenda. "Legitimizing the Invented Congolese Space: The Gaze from within in Early Congolese Fiction." Tydskrif Vir Letterkunde 46, no. 1 (2009): 28-42.
Publisher Statement
Copyright © 2009, Tydskrif vir letterkunde Association This article first appeared in Tydskrif Vir Letterkunde: 46:1 (2009), 28-42.
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