Marita Golden's Migrations Of Africa Literature Analysis

One implication as a result of the biggest known migration of human beings in history is that there is little documentation of individuals from the African Slave Trade. As such a familiar occurrence in history, there is little to be known about the individual experiences of captives during this horrific time. Randy Sparks, author of The Two Princes of Calabar, ends the silence as he provides the reader with a glimpse into an eighteenth century odyssey, and first hand account to the trading communities along the coast of West Africa. This trade not only transported people, but the exchange of ideas is also present across and around the Atlantic. The novel tells the story of two young men from Nigeria who are from an elite slave trading family. These men were captured by Europeans and sold into slavery until they were ultimately released back to their homeland. The Two Princes of Calabar offers insight into the complexities that existed in the transracial Atlantic world of the eighteenth century through the themes of privilege, gender bias, and the mistreatment of the enslaved.

Novelist Chimamanda Adichie brings into consideration to Keim discussion, by emphasizing the connection between a “single story” and “stereotypes” regarding the subject of Africa. One of the dangers Adichie includes in her discussion are individuals being denied the opportunity to tell their story. Adichie draws similarities to Keim when discussing her own personal journey to find her authentic cultural voice, and she emphasizes the many misunderstanding that society, including herself, have made. Adichie admits to not only facing stereotypes, but addresses her own opinion regarding the topic. Adichie admits that as a child, she had initial biases regarding a servant that was employed by her family. According her explanation, she believed that the capability of someone “the servants family” coming from a certain background, made them incapable of such artistry. The same misconceptions can be seen in present day society, we often are prejudiced on who or what can be cultured.

On a “Trip to Congo” Sir Richard F. Burton writes a story during his exploration to the Yellalla or Cataracts of the Congo leaving some detail insights of the customs and behavior of the African communities. He only gives his point of view from an imperialist position and sometimes denigrates and diminishes the people and their culture. Even though Burton had a translator throughout his trip the language barrier prohibits interaction with the communities and the ability to empathize with the natives. Interaction and understanding is the key to appreciate their behaviors, instead Burton

Chinua Achebe was educated in the West, though he hails from an African tribe. His exposure to both African and Western thinking gives him a unique perspective on the colonization of Africa, which is argued to be barbaric by some, but beneficial and necessary by others. In “Things Fall Apart,” Achebe perspective comes through as he masterfully describes a pre-colonization African tribe, and how colonization percolated through it. His authentic accounts of the positives and negatives of both tribal society and colonization leave the reader to answer the question of whether imperialism was morally justifiable or not.

For many Africans, dreaming is a way of life. In Fatou Diome’s novel “The Belly of the Atlantic” she delivers a clear message that things aren’t always what you expect them to be, proving that people's dreams could easily turn into their nightmares. ‘Diome points out the flaws in both France and Senegal, but her main concern is with the people of her home-country, both their false expectations regarding France and Europe as lands of easy opportunity as well as their domestic failures’. This novel is persuasive and successful at bringing awareness to its readers because of the real life examples regarding racism, discrimination, and immigration. This piece will discuss the efforts of African immigrants as well as the similarities and differences between Fatou Diome’s “The Belly of the Atlantic” and Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” characters.

When Idi Amin’s policies are forcing Asians to leave Uganda, Mina’s father Jay asks his lifelong native Ugandan friend Okelo, “Where should I go? Where should I go? This is my home” (Nair). Okelo replies, “Not any more, Jay. Africa is for Africans—black Africans” (Nair). Although the pain of being forced to leave Uganda so that its indigenous people can regain control of the economy is massive for Jay, it is this remark by his closest friend that devastates him, because what it tells him is that he does not belong in Uganda. He is not wanted, not accepted—not even by his best friend.

My room-mate had a single story of Africa; a single story of catastrophe”. Adichie also tells how growing up in Nigeria reading only American and English children’s books made her deaf to her authentic voice. As a child, she wrote about such things as blue-eyed white children easting apples, thinking brown skin and mangos had no place in Literature. That changed as she discovered African writers.

Anderson starts out the book by introducing the reader to her interest in African culture,and relates how she sent essays to an anthropological board so she could go to Africa to do her graduate study. She soon realised that she would be unable to do so because

Migration to the Americas were recalled through the narratives and essays of voyagers and slaves themselves. Thomas Philip, a European explorer, and Job, a wrongfully captured slave, discussed their particular but somehow similar perspectives and experiences on their migration to the Americas. In addition to their stories, Allison Games provided insight on the understanding of slavery and how they attempted to preserve their culture in the Americas while forced into slavery. Through the essays of Philip, Job and Games, the reader can understand that African migration was a wearisome experience, in which the slaves endured little control of their lives, lived in diseased environments, followed gender and age structures for labor, and adapted to new cultures and languages in order to survive not only on their trip to the Americas- but for their future there.

In Derek Walcott’s From in a Green Night: A Far Cry from Africa, the author explains and dives into the topic of colonialism and self-reflection through his own experiences of being trapped between his Kenyan and British descent. Similar to Fanon’s concept of complicity, Walcott also understands both sides of the story in an unbiased manner. In his poem, he uses imagery to describe the violent past in which Kenyans and British people have committed to each other, the ‘savage’ nature of humans during colonization, and his own internal speech where he himself is confused of his cultural and social identity. This paper will explore the core concepts of Walcott’s writing and further explain it through Fanon’s lens to amplify the meaning of the poem.

Chimamanda Adichie is an author from Nigeria, a major country in Africa. She is an exceedingly well-known author from her writings on immigration, feminism, and the African experience in America. She has given a variety of Ted talks, speeches, and has done interviews on immigration, feminism, and the African experience in America. In her writings, most noticeably “My Mother, the Crazy African,” she talks about the experience of immigrants in America and through a lens which relates to issues one from all walks of life can understand. Her book shows a growing divide between the understanding of “American Culture” and other cultures from around the world, in this book, most specifically Nigeria in this case. The analysis in this essay will take place through examining similar work as well as her interviews and speeches.

This chapter in Africans and Their History by Joseph Harris presents some of the roots of the stereotypes and myths about Africa in the past and for the most part are still held today. Harris discusses how the “greats” of history, geography, and literature starting a path of devaluation of Africans that writers after their time followed. Harris also denounced the language that these “greats” used to describe and talk about Africans. He asserts that this language inherently painted Africans as inferior and subhuman.

In 2009 one young man changed the lives of thousands by telling his story of hardship, survival and innovation to the world. The book, "The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind" by William Kamkwamba reveals in great detail the complete blindness that our western society possesses regarding the truth of life on the continent of Africa. As citizens of the western world we have a tendency to see only the statistics and politics of the wars, famines and disasters that occur in developing countries while failing to even consider the human beings struck down by them. In this detachment we pass judgement upon the entire nation as a whole, forgetting the millions who do more in a single day with what little they have than we do with our abundance in a

Elisabeth says then there will never be any solution to the problem of novel in Africa if the Africans wanted a ‘living voice’. The main problem faced by them was because the African writers unlike the French and the English were not acting as writers but were actually behaving like interpreters of their exotic cultures and that the root of their problem was ‘ Having to perform your Africanness at the same time as you write.’

Dominant media produces films using generalized, and distorted images of Africa to create the idea of a dark continent in need colonial help, due to native civilization’s inability to live in a functional society. Mountains of the Moon, follows Richard Burton and John Speke, two explorers in search of the Nile. Set in pre-colonial times, this movie constructs images of Africa, perpetuating African’s inability to live in developed societies, and shows their natural inclination to appease British explorers. The Kitchen Toto, tells the story of Mwangi, who becomes a British officer’s kitchen Toto after his father is killed for opposing the clandestine independence movement. This movie shapes inaccurate images of African independence movements, showing those who are not under colonial rule as threatening, malicious, problematic, and incompetent of leadership. A Good Man in Africa tells the story of a British Diplomat, Morgan Leafy, who lives in Kinjanja, a nation recently freed from British rule. This film portrays Africa’s dependence on neocolonial rule through the Kinjanja’s fait, which rests in the hands of Dr Alex Murray, the man who is in the way of Adekunle’s exploitive building project. These three films represent ho western cultures imagination has evoked stock narratives, creating artificial Africas, in dominant media and films, leading to falsified images expanding from pre-colonialism to twentieth century neocolonialism.