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Afrotopia and African Agency in Drama: A Marxist Reading of Tess Onwueme's "No Vacancy"

Damlègue Lare

  • University of Lomé, Togo

DOI https://doi.org/10.24818/DLG/2024/41/04

Pages 44–61

Licence © 2024 the authors · CC BY 4.0

Abstract

The main objective of this article is to show through a Marxist reading, how pejorative representations of African continent in literary texts of dramatic expression demean creative nexus and developmental agendas in fictions, whereas a constructive invention of the African agency is plausible to promote new representations and resilience, using Tess Onwueme's No Vacancy (2005) as an example. It is to show that language can be used to stimulate positive thinking about African development. The specific question addressed in this study is to what extent socio-political rhetoric on Africa's underdevelopment contributes to creating ideological vision in literature while African agency is otherwise contained in a language reprogramming that resets Africa at the centre.

Keywords —

Afrotopia · African agency · development · language
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Cite this article

Lare, D. (2024). Afrotopia and African Agency in Drama: A Marxist Reading of Tess Onwueme's "No Vacancy". Dialogos, 41, 44–61. https://doi.org/10.24818/DLG/2024/41/04

Lare, Damlègue. “Afrotopia and African Agency in Drama: A Marxist Reading of Tess Onwueme's "No Vacancy".” Dialogos, vol. 41, 2024, pp. 44–61, https://doi.org/10.24818/DLG/2024/41/04.

Lare, Damlègue. 2024. “Afrotopia and African Agency in Drama: A Marxist Reading of Tess Onwueme's "No Vacancy".” Dialogos 41: 44–61. https://doi.org/10.24818/DLG/2024/41/04.

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  author  = {Lare, Damlègue},
  title   = {Afrotopia and African Agency in Drama: A Marxist Reading of Tess Onwueme's "No Vacancy"},
  journal = {Dialogos},
  year    = {2024},
  volume  = {41},
  pages   = {44--61},
  doi     = {10.24818/DLG/2024/41/04}
}
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