1st Edition
Christianity and the African Counter-Discourse in Achebe and Beti Cultures in Dialogue, Contest and Conflict
Christianity and the African Counter-Discourse in Achebe and Beti: Cultures in Dialogue, Contest and Conflict intervenes, in light of African literary products, the history of Christianity in Africa in late 19th and early 20th centuries, goes beyond the existing clichés about the operations of the European Christian missionaries whether Protestant or Catholic in Africa, and opens alternative ways to read the chain of missionary-native African, and missionary-European colonists relationships. Christian missionaries did not come to Africa for: their own interests, the Christianization of Africa, European colonial projects, the interests of Africans, the establishment of European civilization in Africa, but came for all. Once, there was a dialogue between the Christian missionaries and pagan Africans which was in time replaced by contest for superiority, and finally by conflict. Accordingly, the countenance of the continent has changed forever.
Contents
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1: COVERING ACHEBE AND BETI IN AFRICAN LITERATURE
CHAPTER 2: CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES TAKE ROOT IN WEST AFRICA
CHAPTER 3: THE INFLUENCES OF CHRISTIANITY AND MISSIONARIES ON ACHEBE AND BETI
Achebe and Beti Appropriate European Values
CHAPTER 4: READING ACHEBE AND BETI IN LIGHT OF POSTCOLONIAL THEORY
CHAPTER 5: MISSIONARY PORTRAYALS IN THE NOVELS BY ACHEBE AND BETI
CHAPTER 6: THINGS FALL APART AND ARROW OF GOD
Local Informants
Affirmative Missionary Images
Arrow of God
Local Informants
Advantages Coming with Missionaries
CHAPTER 7: THE POOR CHRIST OF BOMBA AND KING LAZARUS
In the Mission: Native Africans
Positive Missionary Images, and Father Drumont’s Self-Confrontation
King Lazarus
Imitating the White Man
Positive Missionary Portrayals and Paradoxes
CONCLUSION
Comparative Evaluation ofthe Christian Missionaries in the Selected Authors
The Counter-Discourse Against Missionary and Colonial Discourses
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Biography
Ali Yiğit is an Assistant Professor of English at the Department of Western Languages and Literatures, Kırklareli University, Turkey. He was born in Kahramanmaraş, Turkey. He holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from Fatih University, Turkey. His research interests include but not limited to: Literatures in English, postcolonial studies, eco-criticism, literary and cultural theories, and popular culture. He has recently published “Nowhere at Ease: Listening to Syrian Refugee Trauma in Christy Lefteri’s The Beekeeper of Aleppo (2019)” in Journal of European Studies, and “Reflections on Kenya’s Economic Impasses: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s Matigari and Wizard of the Crow” in Research in African Literatures (2022).
