Cultural Clash, Alienation, Identity and Sociopolitical unrest in Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease (1960) and Rachid Mimouni’s Le Fleuve détourné (1982).

Abstract

This dissertation has dealt with the themes of Cultural Clash and Alienation, Identity and Sociopolitical unrest in the post independent African literary works more exactly in Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease (1960) and Rachid Mimouni’s Le fleuve détourné (1982). Both Achebe and Mimouni are post independent writers who portray the state of disorder and confusion into which the African societies were immersed. Using the Fanonian theory, we have tried to pick out some of the affinities that lie between the two texts. Le fleuve détourné is written twenty two years after No Longer at Ease. Yet both novels have salient points in common. Both Achebe’s and Mimouni’s novels are lucid portraits of the African societies in the two periods before and after decolonization. They portray the African as an alienated individual whose life is completely altered and whose culture is at the verge of disappearance. Day after day, the life of the African exacerbates. The hopes upon which the independence was built evaporated. By an intensive reading of the two novels and by making reference to the Fanonian theory, we have tried to show that though they are written in two distinct periods and by two different writers, No Longer at Ease and Le fleuve détourné share many themes in common. This makes allusion to the fact that although many years have elapsed after Africa’s independence, she still suffers from nearly the same problems as those she underwent during the colonial period.