Reading Precarity, Disability and Narrative Agency in Helon Habila’s Waiting for an Angel and Measuring Time

IF 0.1 0 LITERATURE
K. Lipenga
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Scholars are beginning to research the presence of disability in African literature, focusing on the way such portrayals either challenge or confirm various views about disability. In this article, the aim is to examine how Helon Habila deliberately links disability, precarity and narrative agency through the presentation of several disabled characters who are also incidentally presented as story-tellers in two novels, Waiting for an Angel (2003) and Measuring Time (2007). However, they do more than just tell stories – they also use the feature of disability as an anchor around which to construct their narratives. The article, therefore, advances the argument that, in the selected texts, Habila challenges the association of the disabled body with precarity, mainly through illustrating the agency accorded to that body through the narrativisation. Further, the setting of civil war in the two texts is highlighted as a particularly disabling environment, which Habila criticises through these characters.
阅读Helon Habila《等待天使》和《测量时间》中的不稳定性、残疾与叙事代理
学者们开始研究非洲文学中残疾的存在,重点是这些描述如何挑战或证实关于残疾的各种观点。在这篇文章中,目的是通过在两部小说《等待天使》(2003年)和《测量时间》(2007年)中偶然出现的几个残疾人角色,来检验海伦·哈比拉是如何故意将残疾、不稳定和叙事代理联系在一起的。然而,他们不仅仅讲述故事,他们还将残疾的特征作为构建叙事的锚。因此,这篇文章提出了这样一种论点,即在选定的文本中,哈比拉挑战了残疾人身体与不稳定的联系,主要是通过叙述来说明赋予该身体的权力。此外,这两个文本中的内战背景被强调为一个特别致残的环境,哈比拉通过这些人物对其进行了批评。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
0.30
自引率
0.00%
发文量
9
期刊介绍: Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa is published bi-annually by Routledge. Current Writing focuses on recent writing and re-publication of texts on southern African and (from a ''southern'' perspective) commonwealth and/or postcolonial literature and literary-culture. Works of the past and near-past must be assessed and evaluated through the lens of current reception. Submissions are double-blind peer-reviewed by at least two referees of international stature in the field. The journal is accredited with the South African Department of Higher Education and Training.
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