Vol 14 No 1 (2023)
Article

Selves Fall Apart: Existential Meditations in Cheikh Hamidou Kane’s Ambiguous Adventure and M.G. Vassanji’s No New Land

PDF HTML
  • Andrew Urie
Andrew Urie
York University
Bio

Published 2023-01-15

How to Cite

Urie, A. (2023). Selves Fall Apart: Existential Meditations in Cheikh Hamidou Kane’s Ambiguous Adventure and M.G. Vassanji’s No New Land. Journal of Integrated Studies, 14(1). Retrieved from https://jis.athabascau.ca/index.php/jis/article/view/355
Copyright Notice

Abstract

This article engages in a comparative examination of Cheikh Hamidou Kane’s novel Ambiguous Adventure (1961) and M.G. Vassanji’s novel No New Land (1991), which each richly delineate the journey of a conflicted protagonist whose conception of selfhood is decimated as a result of his dispersal from Africa to the West. As I demonstrate, the two texts ultimately reveal themselves to be acute existential meditations that suggest that “selves” can in fact fall apart due to the inherent trauma of diasporic dispersal.  

Keywords: Africa; Cheikh Hamidou Kane; M.G. Vassanji; Ambiguous Adventure; No New Land; Existentialism

PDF HTML