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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The use of suspense in three African autobiographies
Author:Afejuku, Tony E.ISNI
Year:2006
Periodical:Okike: an African Journal of New Writing
Issue:48
Pages:21-34
Language:English
Geographic terms:Guinea
Nigeria
South Africa
Subject:autobiography
About persons:Wole Soyinka (1934-)
Camara Laye (1928-1980)ISNI
Ezekiel Mphahlele (1919-2008)ISNI
Abstract:The Guinean writer Camara Laye's 'The African child' (1955), the South African writer Ezekiel Mphahlele's 'Down second avenue' (1959), and the Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka's 'Ake: the years of childhood' (1981) are three autobiographies in which the autobiographers employ the style of novelistic narration. This essay argues that the three autobiographies derive their distinctiveness from the effective way in which their authors employ the novelistic device of suspense to underscore their artistry. The use of this narrative device generates the interest of the reader, who cannot but accept the texts as an aesthetic expression of a lived experience and reality. Bibliogr., notes, sum. [Journal abstract, edited]
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