The satirical trope as a mode of African postcolonial discursive strategies : the example of ngugis and armahs novels

Abstract EN

The postcolonial African writers offer an alternative discourse which is oppositional and contestatory.

By rewriting and redefining their culture and history, they subvert the dominant European discourse.

In the postcolonial view, reality becomes complex and hybrid.

The realist mode in African writing has been replaced by new stylistic features and literary tropes which transcend or disrupt the limits and perceptions of realism.

Satire is one of these literary tropes.

Before dealing with satire and the carnival zed discourse in some of Ngugi’s and Armah’s texts, I will first refer to some theoretical definitions of postcolonial satire along with Mikhail Bakhtin’s concepts of “grotesque realism” and folk laughter as a means of understanding the comic nature of the vision of both writers.