Poetics of mnemonic strategy : the art of adaptation and the spirituality of being & things in Tunde Kelani’s Saworoide and The Narrow Path

This essay utilises two different but related concepts: “poetics and politics of literary memory” by Lars Eckstein and “adaptation” by Linda Hutcheon, to examine Yoruba narrative convention, characterisation and the “spirituality of Being and object(s)” in two films, Saworoide (1999) and The Narrow Path (2006), by the Nigerian filmmaker, Tunde Kelani, who has distinguished himself as one of the leading contemporary Nigerian and African cinema icons and storytellers. The essay argues that as one of the most significant voices in Nollywood, the history of film and cinema in Nigeria and beyond, Kelani has not only turned the adaptation of materials from page to screen into an art and a veritable source of history, he has also shown ways in which the process functions as the recollection of the fading glorious past of his race. In order to achieve its aim, the essay is divided into two parts: the first part examines the cultural and political considerations of memory and the aesthetics of adaptation in relation to Kelani’s body of works, and the second part discusses the two films by drawing from arguments that are developed in the first part.