Affect, empathy, and engagement: Reading African conflict in the global literary marketplace. (June 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Krishnan, Madhu
• Is Part Of: Journal of Commonwealth literature. Volume 52:Number 2(2017)
• Page Start: 212
• Page End: 230
• Publication Date: 2017-06
• Subjects: affect -- Africa -- Aminatta Forna -- conflict -- empathy -- ethics; English literature -- Periodicals; Commonwealth literature (English) -- Periodicals; Littérature anglaise -- Périodiques; 820.05
• DOI: 10.1177/0021989415596011
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0021-9894

Abstract

This article considers the intersection of ethics, responsibility, and literature through readings of Aminatta Forna's The Memory of Love and Dave Eggers' What Is the What . Examining the ways in which each novel situates its staging of African conflict against the a priori image of Africa, the article focuses on the ways in which each novel demands a readerly engagement based on alterity. Rather than viewing the text as a passive repository of ethical lessons, the article suggests that by leveraging narrative unreliability both novels create a vision of literature as the active site of ethical engagement and conflict.