Identity And Diversity In Pepetela’s Mayombe (1983)

Résumé: This dissertation tries to shed light on themes of identity and diversity in Pepetela’s Mayombe (1983) in the light of Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks (1952), The Wretched of the Earth (1961) and Kobena Mercer’s Welcome to the Jungle (1994). In the first part, we have examined Mayombe by analyzing the issue of identity through race and the process of decolonization. First, we have relied on Fanon’s theory of racialization taken from his work Black Skin, White Masks (1952), resultantly, we have found that race is not a parameter of national identity according to Pepetela’s character ‘Theory’. Then, we dealt with violence and nationalism as two important elements in the process of decolonization using Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth (1961), which emphasizes in using violence and giving importance to political education and national consciousness and unity. In the second part, we have examined Mayombe concerning the issue of diversity through hybridity, multiculturalism and transculturalism. We have corroborated with Kobena Mercer’s theory taken from Welcome to the Jungle (1994) to demonstrate how ‘Theory’ the main character refers to hybridity through assimilating two cultures and having a hybrid identity. Additionally, how the concepts of multiculturalism and tranculturalism reflected the other guerrillas and all Angola as a nation. Indeed, Pepetela succeded to approach several essential concepts in one literary work within an African social and cultural context.

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