The Troubleed Image of Africa in Shilia Kaaya's Poetry
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Contemporary Journal of African Studies
Abstract
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This paper examines representations of Africa in Shilia Kaaya’s poetry. Kaaya’s The Bleeding Heart and other Poems (2009) features thirty-eight poems covering diverse themes. This paper focuses on ten poems which are devoted to colonialism, neo-colonialism and political problems besetting contemporary Africa. It argues that Kaaya’s poetry interrogates the dynamics of colonialism, neo-colonialism and the political problems in Africa and their effect on the development of Africa. It demonstrates how Kaaya’s poems raise salient issues about how Africa’s development — economically and politically, is undermined by both the European coloniser and Africans themselves. The Archetypal approach, which describes images found in a variety of poems written by a single poet, is applied to enhance understanding of the core message (s) of the poems.
Keywords
Africa, Colonialism, Image, Neo-colonialism, Development