The Resilient Opacity of Vassanji’s The In-Between World of Vikram Lall
Vassanji’s novel The In-Between World of Vikram Lall recounts the life of its eponymous hero, and through him highlights the difficulties encountered by the South Asian community in Kenya, from the years leading up to independence to post-independence years. Part neither of the grand narrative of co...
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| Опубликовано в: : | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/ces, |
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| Главный автор: | |
| Формат: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Язык: | Anglais |
| Опубликовано: |
Commonwealth Essays and Studies
2022
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| Online-ссылка: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Итог: | Vassanji’s novel The In-Between World of Vikram Lall recounts the life of its eponymous hero, and through him highlights the difficulties encountered by the South Asian community in Kenya, from the years leading up to independence to post-independence years. Part neither of the grand narrative of colonisation nor of the anti-colonial struggle, the Lalls are doomed to a de facto in-betweeness which the protagonist finds alienating. This novel is characterized by a constant shift from past to present, from the childhood years which the homodiegetic narrator remembers with a certain nostalgia to his perspective as a fully-grown up man who now lives in Canada. Yet the shift in perspective does not imply a move from innocence to experience, let alone a move from ignorance to knowledge. A strategy of partial unveiling underpins the novel on a structural, generic and metatextual level, thereby generating a certain opacity. The purpose of this partial unveiling is to bring to our notice the instrumentalisation of the South Asian community, doubly subaltern. |
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