Disability in African Fiction
Session Coordinator:
Division of Language
and Literature
“Ability in Disability: J.M. Coetzee’s Fiction and the Empowerment
of the Disabled.”
J.M. Coetzee’s works assume the dignity and central position
of the disabled in the universe. In the Heart of the Country, Waiting for the
Barbarian, Life and Times of K and Foe, are read as postmodern allegories, closely
tied to the South African context, a milieu that was handicapped and disabled
during the dismantled apartheid. The texts also transform the urgent societal
concerns into more universal universal troubles, making disability in Coetzee
a signifier of the decadence and disillusionment in
Ayo Kehinde
“Highs and Lows: Dis/Abilities and Agency in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s
Nervous Conditions
The various effects of the colonial project on colonized
individuals have been classified and evaluated by many scholars with perhaps
the most notable being Frantz Fanon. It is in Jean-Paul Sartre’s preface to Fanon’s
work that the phrase “The condition of native is nervous condition” appears.
Pluralizing Sartre’s “diagnosis” and affixing it to her novel, Dangarembga
creates an apt title replete with rich layers of meaning and theoretical moorings
to boot . The disabling effects of colonization reoccur in Tambu’s mother
Mainini, in her Aunt Maiguru, and especially in Nyasha’s battle with anorexia
throughout the novel.These women struggle to regain any sense of wholeness
or stability and their lives, even the lives of women who have benefited most
directly from contact with high culture, ultimately offer disappointment and
discouragement. Yet the story does
not sadly end with utter destruction and all encompassing helplessness of
the representatives of low culture. While the diseases of high cultured “Englishness,”
of patriarchy and colonialism indeed affect Tambu, she manages to transcend
or escape their debilitating grasp as she pursues an education and grows as
an individual. In so doing, she alone embodies agency in the face of impotence;
ability in the face of disability.
Walter P. Collins
“The ‘Chthonic Realm’: The Abiku Syndrome as a Metaphor of
Failure in Soyinka.”
From the onset, there are different degrees of illnesses,
and among the Yorubas of which Soyinka is a member, illness is simply an indication
that all is not well. It manifests itself in multiple ways: physical, spiritual,
mental and metaphysical. The first three generally have causes, exhibit symptoms,
and usually respond to a variety of treatments, aside from rituals. When it
comes to the metaphysical illness, one enters a realm beyond the typical Yoruba
worldview of the unborn, the dead and the living. Soyinka believes in a fourth
realm “ …the area of transition.” (Conversations, 24). In an interview with
Biodun Jeyifo, Wole Soyinka explains the concept of the “chthonic realm” or
“transitional gulf” as that space between humans and spirits which Ogun the
god of Iron bridges in Yoruba mythology, and is “inhabited by those whom the
Yoruba regard as unfinished, imperfect beings, because they exist halfway
between states.” (Conversations,
22). This willful crisscrossing from and to the world
of the living and dead captures the essence of this paper which looks at the
abiku as a metaphor of failure, and general unfulfilled existence. Like the
abiku,
Bitrus P. Gwamna
“Combating Stereotypes: Examining Disabled Characters in
African American Children’s Literature.”
Disabled characters began to appear more regularly in children’s
books after 1985. However, the literature that portrays children with disabilities,
particularly African Americans, tends to offer stereotypical depictions where
the disabled characters are treated as victims and focus on the miracle cure
as a plot device. The majority of books
written by African Americans, and featuring African American characters with
disabilities were written for children between the ages of 7 and 14. Because
of the complexity and variety of disabilities that exist, introducing the
topic through images allows children to understand that people with disabilities
are among the many groups of individuals who make up their community. Some
African American children’s literature reflects the negative stereotypes that
are ascribed to individuals with disabilities through the use of implausible,
one-dimensional characters that are expected to perform acts of heroism to
gain acceptance. The critical use of these and similar texts in educational
curriculum is a key step in combating stereotypes about African Americans
with disabilities. Of the broad range
of disabilities that affect the African American community, the most widely
discussed topics in children literature are visual impairments, physical disabilities,
and diseases. Sharon Bell Mathis’ 1990 novel Listen for the Fig Tree, Project
Wheels by Jacqueline Turner Banks, and W. Christopher Cason’s Even Ground will be the focus of an exploratory
discussion regarding the treatment of disabilities in African American children’s
literature.