Pragma-Criticism: An Afrieurocentric Reaction to the Bolekaja Agenda on the African Novel

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Abstract

The trio of Chinweizu, Onwuchekwa Jemie and Ihechukwu Madubuike call themselves the Bolekaja critics in their unabashedly polemical book, Toward the Decolonization of African Literature, stating, "we are Bolekaja critics, outraged touts for the passenger lorries of African literature". In this book, the Troika (as they are also called) claim that their mission is to rescue Africa's prose literature from the dominant Eurocentric criticism. Because of certain misconceptions traced to the ideology of the three writers, the book was summarily out-modeled. However, it is clear that in spite of its notoriety, the book could not be easily forgotten as it subjects the tendentious …