Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Date

2025

Document Type

Thesis (Access Restricted)

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts

Department

English

Committee Chair

Mark Mayer

Committee Member

Emily Skaja

Committee Member

Shelby Crosby

Abstract

This collection reimagines Nigerian, African, and African diasporic histories through characters navigating loss, trauma, climate crisis, and authoritarianism. In the title story, a Nigerian AI law student in the U.S. begins a tense dialogue with their mother—an iron-willed matriarch—after news of her self-renaming and the unresolved death of their father resurface old wounds. In “Shadowless,” a peacekeeping captain adrift at sea reckons with grief and metaphysical dislocation after his orderly’s suicide. “Importunity” features Rhoda, a blind corn seller, who refuses viral charity, critiquing the spectacle of aid. In “The Abyssinian Ground Hornbill,” a son uncovers the truth behind his father’s failed ambitions and vanishes during a protest modeled on Nigeria’s EndSARS movement. Blending magical realism, metafiction, and political critique, these stories echo the work of Soyinka, Habila, and Adichie, while questioning the authority of narrative itself: how do we speak the unspeakable?

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to ProQuest.

Notes

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