'That Ever-Blurry Line Between Us and the Criminals': African Noir and the Ambiguity of Justice in Mũkoma Wa Ngũgĩ's Black Star Nairobi and Leye Adenle's When Trouble Sleeps. (10th July 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Naidu, Sam
• Is Part Of: Forum for modern language studies. Volume 56:Number 3(2020)
• Page Start: 331
• Page End: 346
• Publication Date: 2020-07-10
• Subjects: African noir -- postcolonial -- Afro-pessimism -- Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ -- Leye Adenle -- Kenyan crime fiction -- Nigerian crime fiction; Languages, Modern -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals; Philology, Modern -- Periodicals; Electronic journals; 800.05
• DOI: 10.1093/fmls/cqaa020
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0015-8518

Abstract

Abstract: This article, which focuses on African noir as a variety of neo-noir literature, begins by outlining the intertextual and intercultural relationships between classic noir and African noir. Thereafter, the postcolonial, postmodernist and transnational elements of African noir are described utilizing Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ's novel Black Star Nairobi (2013) and Leye Adenle's When Trouble Sleeps (2018) as exemplars. Arguing that African noir draws on various genres and discourses, the article demonstrates how issues of socio-political justice, ontological and existential dilemmas, aesthetic concerns and the epistemological quest are rendered as ambiguous and murky. Based on a close reading of Black Star Nairobi and When Trouble Sleeps, the article concludes that the predominant chiaroscuro effect of African noir is not so much a 'dark' sensibility as one of abstruseness and poignant Afro-pessimism.