Representations of Homosexuality in Jude Dibia’s Walking with Shadows and Uzodinma Iweala’s Speak No Evil

Abstract

Critical discourse surrounding contemporary African literature often navigates a tension between traditional cultural preservation and the realities of postmodern, globalised identities. In their ongoing engagement with colonialism and neocolonialism, some thinkers argue that African culture must guard against Western-inspired globalised influences that appear to fragment and de-emphasise sacred aspects of life such as humanity, sexuality, God, and other primordial values. However, studies of sexual identities and sexuality are steadily increasing within the African novel and African-centred criticism. This paper therefore investigates representations of homosexuality in Nigeria as captured in Jude Dibia’s Walking with Shadows and Uzodinma Iweala’s Speak No Evil. Using queer theory and Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, the study observes that, since the representation of homosexuality and homosexuals in contemporary African fictional narrative is brazen and bold, its analysis in the new corpus of literature is equally legitimised as the new normal. The paper concludes that rigid heteronormative sexualities and religious rhetoric are deeply ingrained in the socio-cultural fabric, yet non-conforming identities persist within a postmodern culture that increasingly reflects the complex realities of a globalised world.