Abdulrazak Gurnah's fictions of the Swahili coast
Littoral Locations and Amphibian Aesthetics
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3652798 |
|---|---|
| Authors | M Samuelson (0000-0002-5070-1046, University of Cape Town, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 38 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 499-515 |
| Publication date | 2012-09-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social Dynamics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0253-3952 • E-ISSN: 1940-7874 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/02533952.2012.749014 |
| OpenAlex | W2019630601 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 15 |
| References cited | 22 |
Michael Pearson has remarked that a “history of the ocean needs to be amphibious, moving easily between land and sea.” This article takes up his challenge within the field of literary studies, while drawing also on his notion of “littoral society,” as it engages what it describes as an amphibian aesthetic in the oeuvre of the Zanzibari-British novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah. It argues that the oeuvre inscribes the layered and ambivalent histories of the Swahili coast – the entanglements produced by the monsoon regime; the slave trade; Portuguese, Omani, German and British imperial designs; independence and the Zanzibar revolution – through a dual orientation fostered by the littoral. From the vantage point of the beach it presents nuanced reflections on the act of telling stories about Indian Ocean Africa that emphasise implication rather than transcendence and which are articulated through perspectival shifts and novelistic dialogism
Aesthetics · Ambivalence · Art · Field (mathematics · Independence (probability theory · Littoral zone · Portuguese · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Swahili · African history and culture studies · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Philosophy · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies · Geology · Oceanography
Abdulrazak Gurnah’s African Ocean
The Literary Indian Ocean
Post-Colonial Experiences
Complex Implication in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Afterlives
Of Oceanic Crossings and Discordant Cultural Adaptations in Post-apartheid Neo-slave Narration
Dark Water
The Aquatic Within
A Fiction to Mock the Cuckold’
Styling multilateralism
Folded ocean
You’ll never forget what your camera remembers”
Looking forward, looking back
The spice of life
Towards a minor global architecture at Lamu, Kenya
Producing a World of Remains in Indian Ocean Africa
Islands and beaches
Dialogism
The Indian Ocean
Dialogism
Loss
Postcolonial Melancholia
Journal of Postcolonial Writing
Port Cities and Intruders
The Graves of TarimGenealogy and Mobility across the Indian Ocean
Mediterranean Crossings
Indian Ocean Studies
A Hundred Horizons
Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar
Littoral Society
Islands and Beaches, Discourses on a Silent Land
The Graves of Tarim
| Citations per year | 1.15 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2013 - 2026 (14) |
| Highly cited | No |