{"title":"埃马纽埃尔·贾的《WARchild:一个男孩士兵的故事》中的不稳定、保护和权力","authors":"A. Gagiano","doi":"10.1080/1013929X.2020.1795352","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Despite being a memoir and not a novel, Jal's text is both carefully shaped and affectively complex; amenable to a literary reading along its intersecting axes of precarity, protectedness and power. Child soldier texts have become icons of ambiguous precarity in African literary studies. WARchild enlarges this scope in vividly evoking the protected family life of a war-affected child prior to military participation as an actual boy soldier who then looks for refuge and protection in power, brutality and bloodshed. Jal details the forms of precarity impinging on the child during wartime, in the post-war youth's existence as well as the initially short-lived and fragile shelters available to the socially damaged misfit in the long struggle to cope with if not overcome post-war precarities. Although co-authored, the text throughout convincingly articulates Jal's single voice as a powerful witness against and interrogator of war – especially but not exclusively in its incorporation of children into military action. The article traces this delineation of evolving precarity, kinds of protectedness sought, found and tested, and power forms that impinge upon and are entered into by the boy soldier subject.","PeriodicalId":52015,"journal":{"name":"Current Writing-Text and Reception in Southern Africa","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1000,"publicationDate":"2020-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/1013929X.2020.1795352","citationCount":"1","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Precarity, Protectedness and Power in Emmanuel Jal's WARchild: A Boy Soldier's Story\",\"authors\":\"A. Gagiano\",\"doi\":\"10.1080/1013929X.2020.1795352\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"Despite being a memoir and not a novel, Jal's text is both carefully shaped and affectively complex; amenable to a literary reading along its intersecting axes of precarity, protectedness and power. Child soldier texts have become icons of ambiguous precarity in African literary studies. WARchild enlarges this scope in vividly evoking the protected family life of a war-affected child prior to military participation as an actual boy soldier who then looks for refuge and protection in power, brutality and bloodshed. Jal details the forms of precarity impinging on the child during wartime, in the post-war youth's existence as well as the initially short-lived and fragile shelters available to the socially damaged misfit in the long struggle to cope with if not overcome post-war precarities. Although co-authored, the text throughout convincingly articulates Jal's single voice as a powerful witness against and interrogator of war – especially but not exclusively in its incorporation of children into military action. The article traces this delineation of evolving precarity, kinds of protectedness sought, found and tested, and power forms that impinge upon and are entered into by the boy soldier subject.\",\"PeriodicalId\":52015,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Current Writing-Text and Reception in Southern Africa\",\"volume\":null,\"pages\":null},\"PeriodicalIF\":0.1000,\"publicationDate\":\"2020-07-02\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/1013929X.2020.1795352\",\"citationCount\":\"1\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Current Writing-Text and Reception in Southern Africa\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"1085\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.1080/1013929X.2020.1795352\",\"RegionNum\":0,\"RegionCategory\":null,\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"N/A\",\"JCRName\":\"LITERATURE\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Current Writing-Text and Reception in Southern Africa","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1013929X.2020.1795352","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"N/A","JCRName":"LITERATURE","Score":null,"Total":0}
Precarity, Protectedness and Power in Emmanuel Jal's WARchild: A Boy Soldier's Story
Despite being a memoir and not a novel, Jal's text is both carefully shaped and affectively complex; amenable to a literary reading along its intersecting axes of precarity, protectedness and power. Child soldier texts have become icons of ambiguous precarity in African literary studies. WARchild enlarges this scope in vividly evoking the protected family life of a war-affected child prior to military participation as an actual boy soldier who then looks for refuge and protection in power, brutality and bloodshed. Jal details the forms of precarity impinging on the child during wartime, in the post-war youth's existence as well as the initially short-lived and fragile shelters available to the socially damaged misfit in the long struggle to cope with if not overcome post-war precarities. Although co-authored, the text throughout convincingly articulates Jal's single voice as a powerful witness against and interrogator of war – especially but not exclusively in its incorporation of children into military action. The article traces this delineation of evolving precarity, kinds of protectedness sought, found and tested, and power forms that impinge upon and are entered into by the boy soldier subject.
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.