Exploring the Liminal in Matigari: An Analysis of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's Aesthetic of Resistance and Revolution

Koffi Jules KOUAKOU

Numéro 14 – RILE-2 de 2019 (Deuxième numéro 2019) (2019) Page(s) 47 - 58 ISSN 2076-6130

This article reads both resistance and revolution in Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s approach to the concept of the liminal in Matigari (1988). It detects, indeed, threshold attributes in Ngugi’s onomastic construction. Furthermore, it contends that linguistic abrogation and appropriation, as well as transgenericity and intertextuality confer a higher hybrid framework to the narrative. As such, the novel nurtures multifarious interstices, which take the form of an aesthetic of resistance to Eurocentrism. As these liminal spaces intertwine to gestate confusion, indeterminacy, and sense of loss, they result in a need for societal change through revolution. Keywords: Liminality, hybridity, onomastic, resistance, revolution Résumé: Cet article relève la double notion de résistance et de 48 language, raising the concept of liminality (A.R. Chakraborty, 2006). The liminal space, thus created, functions as an aesthetic of both resistance and revolution. This paper works out the mechanisms by which the novel achieves that literary construction, following a three-fold articulation. The first underscores the liminal as a “transcultural space in which strategies for personal and communal selfhood may be elaborated” (K. Moles, 2007, p.49). The second exemplifies instances of abrogation and appropriation (B. Ashcroft et al., 2007, pp.3-4), and other techniques, whereby the novelist constructs the liminal. The last part reads the interstitial spaces in Matigari as revolutionary venues. The writer’s stand – encompassed chiefly in postcolonial reclaims for cultural justice – ultim

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Koffi Jules KOUAKOU. « Exploring the Liminal in Matigari: An Analysis of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's Aesthetic of Resistance and Revolution ». Revue Ivoirienne de Langues Étrangères, Numéro 14, 2019, p. 47. ISSN 2076-6130.