Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences - Institute of Asian and African Studies

Dr Abba Abba

Name
Dr Abba Abba
Status
Foundationer

Institution
Humboldt-Universität → Präsidium → Kultur-, Sozial- und Bildungswissenschaftliche Fakultät → Institut für Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften → Afrikanische Literaturen und Kulturen
Mailing address
Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin

Dr. Abba Abba was a research fellow on DAAD scholarship from 1 october till 31 december 2018. He is Head of Department at the Department of English and Literary Studies in Edwin Clark University, Kiagbodo, Delta State, Nigeria.


Subject of research:

Resisting Subalternity: Remediating Resistance Struggles in the Trenches of Biafra War Narratives


Summary

The Nigeria- Biafra war which started in 1967 is said to have ended in 1970 with Biafrans nursing the sores of defeat. With this defeat, they seem to have lost their voice and ever since then have a feeling of subaltern position in Nigerian socio-political landscape. But with undying optimism, the Biafran flag has been hoisted severally in resistance to this subaltern status. Thus despite the attempt to obliterate the memory of the war in varying ways, more narratives continue to emerge, drawing attention to the fact that the issues that led to that war have not been resolved but merely swept aside. The present study is motivated by literary evidence of the interrogation of the unending conflicts in the trenches of the novel and memoir, more than four decades after. The target of this research is to come up with a book titled “Resisting Subalternity: Remediating Resistance Struggles in the Trenches of Nigeria-Biafra War Narratives.” The purposively selected texts for analysis are Chinua Achebe’s There was a Country, Chimamanda Adichie‟s Half of a Yellow Sun, Buchi Emecheta’s Destination Biafra, Chukwuemeka Ike’s Sunset at Dawn, Elechi Amadi’s Sunset in Biafra, Cyprian Ekwensi’s Survive the Peace, Ken Saro-Wiwa’s Sozaboy. These narratives have been chosen because they expose, from diverse perspectives, the diverse nature of the Nigeria-Biafra conflicts ranging from the period before, during and after the war. Particularly, the narratives seek to engage with imaginative but informed literary historicization in order to give voice to many of the events that led to that war which still remain unresolved in Nigeria today. Beyond these, the texts also portray commonalities of a shared ethnic identity and experiences woven around the question of negotiating togetherness.