War-affected Children in Three African Short Stories: Finding Sanctuary within the Space of Placelessness
In short stories by three postcolonial African authors depicting war-affected children – Zimbabwean Dambudzo Marechera’s “The Camp” (1994, written in 1986), Nigerian Ben Okri’s “Laughter beneath the Bridge” (1986) and Ethiopian Maaza Mengiste’s “A Good Soldier” (2012) – the child protagonists are di...
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| Dans: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/ces, |
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| Format: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
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Commonwealth Essays and Studies
2020
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| Accès en ligne: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Résumé: | In short stories by three postcolonial African authors depicting war-affected children – Zimbabwean Dambudzo Marechera’s “The Camp” (1994, written in 1986), Nigerian Ben Okri’s “Laughter beneath the Bridge” (1986) and Ethiopian Maaza Mengiste’s “A Good Soldier” (2012) – the child protagonists are displaced and exist in precarious spaces of unbelonging. The conditions vividly evoked from these war-affected African children’s perspectives indicate that the unaccommodating “places” where the children find themselves propel them into terrifyingly featureless, engulfing and unrecognizable “non-places,” in need of sanctuary as a place of safety. Yet even in such places of desperation, the children somehow retain or find precarious shelter in “places” of love, tenderness and loyalty.war-affected children, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Ethiopia, displacement, sanctuary |
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