SINZANG JOURNAL

Among the Senoufos from the North of Côte  d’Ivoire, the sacred grove is commonly  called SINZANG.  The first of its kind would date from the time of the patriarch and chief of Korhogo, SORO Zouakagnon (1840-1894). The SINZANG is also the highest place for transmitting intergenerational  knowledge. This  sacred grove is a pantheon that promotes the teaching of ancestral knowledge.

As part of this pedagogical and academic logic, the SINZANG  journal aims to promote both African and Western humanities. It is a peer-reviewed journal with an Academic Advisory Board. It is a bilingual and multidisciplinary biannual periodical, published both in English and in French. However, works written in German and Spanish are also welcomed.

ARGUMENT OF THE CALL FOR PAPERS

The Drafting  Board of the scientific online journal SINZANG,  a biannual publication of the English Department of the University Peleforo GON COULIBALY, Korhogo (Côte d’Ivoire), brings to the attention of the University scientific community, a thematic call for papers for the publication of a special issue (December 2024) whose theme is as follows :

Tribute to an African Nobel / Abdulrazak  Gurnah  : An Unbound Voice, Manifold Resonances

The aim of this call for papers is to elucidate the various aspects of the political verve conveyed through the writings of the Tanzanian writer Abdulrazak Gurnah. This commitment is blatant both in thematic and aesthetical tropes. The objective is to pinpoint the way the author challenges Eurocentric  discourse  and the  transgression of narrative conventions  in order to reinvigorate African novelistic creation, notably in his ten novels, which we hope to cover in this study.

Since its inception in 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to the author who « produces the most outstanding work of an idealistic tendency in the field of literature ». After the inaugural consecration of Sully Prudhomme, authors, poets, playwrights and novelists have followed  one  another  to the literary Nobel  podium. In 2021, the celebrated Tanzanian  novelist wins this grail one year after the release of his work Afterlives. In so doing, he joins the elitist pantheon of African authors to have won this international laurel. In doing so, Gurnah follows in the footsteps of his African predecessors the like of the Nigerian Wole Soyinka (1986), the Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz  (1988), the South Africans Nadine  Gordimer (1991) and John Maxwell Coetzee (2003) ;  and, finally, the Zimbabwean author Doris Lessing (2007).

All the authors who have received this distinction  are distinguished by a commitment  that is widely present in their writings. The plural form of « writings » is explained by the fact that the Nobel Prize does not reward a single work, but a career, a literary production  taken as a whole. It is an itinerary that recounts the suffering, anxieties, oppression and atrocities that is honored. Narrative  innovations,  new writing techniques, thematic  and aesthetical transgressions are all rewarded by the Nobel Prize. These literary feats are even more remarkable when they depict the new forms of threat, fear and unease to which the contemporary world is prone to.

Gurnah won the Nobel Prize not for the pugnacity of the message conveyed in Afterlives, but for his commitment to campaigning on behalf of the voiceless in his entire novelistic output, which includes  :

1. Memory of Departure (1987)
2. Pilgrim Ways (1988)
3. Dottie (1990)
4. Paradise (1994)
5. Admiring Silence (1996)
6. By the Sea (2001)
7. Desertion (2005)
8. The Last Gift (2011)
9. Gravel Heart (2017)
10. Afterlives (2020)

Taken  as a whole, these works deal with fairly recurrent tropes of the elsewhere. When his homeland, the island of Zanzibar, is plunged into violence, Gurnah goes into exile in the UK in 1960. It is a painful experience that considerably influences almost all his works. As a result, his discursive  style  is strongly  influenced  by themes  of migration and immigration. On the continent, he is one of the first authors to ‘skim the routes’ of migration, thus paving the way for his likes of the new generation, namely Chimamanda  Ngozi  Adichie, Leila Aboulela, Ben Okri and others.

Memory of Departure, Pilgrim Ways, Dottie, Admiring Silence, Desertion and The Last Gift illustrate  migration  and displacement   issues.    Afterlives  deals not only  with German colonization, but it is also with rife with questions  related to identity.  Desertion focuses on impossible love stories. Paradise deals with exile, and the colonized and the immigrant’s sense of belonging to their culture-of-origin. It also highlights colonialism and slavery.

Postcolonial narrative is reactivated in Admiring  Silence and By the Sea.  The latter work of fiction highlights Indian Ocean Studies alongside Desertion and Gravel Heart.  For Gurnah, the Indian Ocean is not simply an ordinary maritime space; it is also a historical space that serves as a bridge between many cultures, many peoples: a tool for human and cultural connectivity.

Indian Ocean  Studies  combines  ecocritical  study,  environmental  reflection  and the subversion of Western  discourse. Many other themes are addressed in Gurnah’s texts: sexuality and homosexuality, women’s feminist aspirations, transgressive narration…

For an efficient organization of all these ideas, we suggest the following reading axes:

1. ABDULRAZAK GURNAH : A POSTCOLONIAL WRITING

This section focuses on the author’s postcolonial stance. It exhumes the excesses of the colonial system and its unfortunate implications in African spaces under foreign domination. The advent of Western colonization imposed a police regime whose violence (in the broadest sense of the  term)  indelibly scar indigenous  peoples  and their  cultures. British colonization  (and German colonization which is highlighted in Afterlives) sends such a heavy blow to the ancestral and tribal systems of the African peoples that they eventually give in. At the advent of  the independences, African elites do no better than their colonial predecessors. On the contrary, they set up autocratic regimes with pogroms fueled against their political adversaries, intellectuals and subversive writers, who most often go into exile for life.

1.1. Diasporic Experiences

• migration
• forced migration
• immigration
• exile
• refugees
• asylum seekers
• displacement
• dislocation
• translocation
• identity loss
• assimilation
• alienation
• hybridity
• nativism
• nationalism

1.2 Aftermaths of Colonialism and Colonization

• colonial oppression
• colonial stereotyping of the colonized
• colonial discourse
• cultural imperialism
• racial representations
• question of identity
• colonial language vs. African language
• decolonization and the politics of writing back
• the sense of belonging
• the political significance of Indian Ocean Studies

2. A TRANSGRESSIVE NARRATIVE STYLE

Gurnah’s narrative transgression is proof of the insubordination of his pen. In his texts, he   deploys   narrative   categories   that  stands against   pre-established   epistemologies.   His manipulation  of narrative  instances  such as  chronotope  (time  and space),  narrative  voices, focalization, plot… is the hallmark of a subversion that he has made his own. The following narratological reflections are worth exploring in Gurnah.

• disordered narrations
• narrative changes
• narratological unreality
• multiple focus (narrative polyphony)
• imbedded narratives
• homodiegetic narration
• multimodal narratives (generic hybridity)
• postcolonial narratology
• intertextuality: the presence of the tale in fiction
• the aesthetics of Indian Ocean studies.

3. THE ENDEMIC TRIBULATIONS OF POST-COLONIAL AFRICA

The Tanzanian author’s commitment can also be seen in the acuity with which he depicts the  tares of post-colonial   societies.  Apart from denouncing  the  perverse direct effects  of colonization, Africa is inevitably prey to new challenges and new forms of unrest.   Society thus becomes anomic: it disintegrates under the weight of moral derangement. Alongside normative heterosexuality,  new  ways of conceiving  and experiencing  sexuality  are emerging. Men  (the masculine gender) are no longer attracted solely to the feminine gender. In contemporary African societies, homosexuality  is undermining  the  male gender. Men  are emotionally  and sexually attracted to people of the same sex. At the same time, post-colonial  societies are witnessing the rise of feminist postures that challenge the natural hegemony that patriarchy has deliberately granted to the male gender over women.

Socially and politically  speaking, Africa is in turmoil. Post-independence  government regimes have failed to foster a climate of well-being for the masses, or to ensure the security of their populations.  Post-independence  state management by African leaders has encouraged the eruption of violence  in inter-human  relations. The  many coups d’états,  rebellions, states of emergency and curfews are a perfect illustration.

The abusive exploitation of biodiversity (fauna, flora, fishing resources, natural areas) is a clear threat to man’s survival in the universe. All these elements can be summed up in the following points:

3.1 Gender and Sexuality

• homosexuality
• sexual stereotypes
• same-sex attraction  and desire: homosexuality
• mixed couples
• inter-gender relations and prejudice
• patriarchy, the patriarchal vision of African societies
• feminism and its agendas (women’s awareness and empowerment)…

3.2. The Challenges of the Postcolony

• the postcolony
• class struggles
• the irruption of dictatorial regimes
• poor governance of African leaders
• trauma
• state-sponsored violence…

3.3 Ecocritical Study of Contemporary Spaces

• climate change
• environmental injustice
• anthropocentrism
• ecocentrism
• deep ecology
• Ecocritical study of Ocean Sea Studies…

NOTA 1 :

• Papers accepted for review are evaluated anonymously. The final decision rests with the Drafting Panel.
• Contributors  take sole responsibility of views and opinions expressed in their articles published in SINZANG
• Writing  language : English (preferably)  or French
• Colleagues wishing to take part in this literary event (and who have problems to find out some of the novels by Gurnah) are invited to contact the SINZANG JOURNAL  editorial board, email:

sinzangarticles@revue-sinzang.net and  revuesinzang@gmail.com for specific questions relating to the call for papers. They can also contact Dr. Kouakou Antony ANDE
Mobile: +225 07 09 54 03 14

We already have an electronic copy of Paradise,  By the Sea and Afterlives for colleagues outside Côte d’Ivoire. You only need to send us an email.

SCHEDULE

October 1, 2024 : Deadline  for submissions
October 30, 2024 : Return  of peer-reveiwed articles to contributors
November 15, 2024 : Return  of the final texts to the Drafting Board
November 30, 2024 : Sending  of off-prints
December 2024 : On-line  release of articles

PAYMENT OF ASSESSMENT AND PUBLICATION FEES

Submitted  articles will be evaluated by independent  reviewers. At the end of the peer- reviewing, if the project is accepted, payment of 45,000 CFA (69 euros) is required for evaluation and publication  costs, to be paid when sending the improved article in accordance with the evaluation recommendations.

Payments are made to the following address: Kouakou Antony ANDE
Via Mobile Money services preferably for Ivorian residents: 0709540314 (Orange Money) / 0506410849 (Wave).

As for international payments, they will be made via MoneyGram, Western Union, Ria, When you fill out the transfer form, you must include your telephone number and address.
Keep the receipt as proof of payment and promptly send a scanned copy to our email addresses.

NOTA 2 :

As contributors  send their  articles, they should pay right away 15000 CFA (23 euros) for assessment fees. The remaining instalment (30000 Fr CFA, 46 euros) will be paid when sending the final text to the Drafting Board.

EDITORIAL RULES

All articles should  be submitted  electronically to the Editor-in-Chief. Authors are advised to adhere strictly to the referencing style of NORCAMES  as follows. Manuscripts that do not adhere to these guidelines  will not be reviewed. They will be ruled out.

SINZANG is a scientific journal of literature, language, communication  and educational sciences.

It is hosted  by  the  Arts  and Humanities  Research and Training  Unit of Peleforo  GON COULIBALY University. It publishes only original works. Accordingly, the manuscripts must not be previously published. All proposed articles will be submitted  to the review committee to select the best ones for publication. Proposals for correction  will be sent to the author by the editorial board. Nota Bene: The views expressed by the authors of articles are theirs, not those of the editorial and review committee of SINZANG.