MARGINAL OPPORTUNITIES AND DREAMS DEFERRED IN FOREIGN GODS INC. AND THE BEAUTIFUL THINGS THAT HEAVEN BEARS

Abstract

This paper explores some of the ways some African Diaspora writers, Okey Ndibe and Dinaw Mengestu explore the African migrants’ identity crisis and the interplay between identity and memory in the projection of their characters. In engaging the problems of twenty first century African Diaspora, the two authors portray characters who encounter the present pressing issues of place and marginal opportunities in a deeply self-conscious approach. Foreign Gods Inc. and The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears are works that articulate features of trauma fiction in the way the characters display individual and collective deep loss, intense fright, and the specific ways they form self-identity as a result of their frightening encounter with the outside.  The two texts expose the individual and collective challenges that confront African migrants in America. These challenges highlight the larger problems that African Diaspora suffers in the quest to fit into the American society. The authors present their narration using the background of the characters which characteristically underscores the political history of the region.

This paper therefore, investigates migrant conditions of the African Diaspora that elicit feelings of despair and the rhetoric of big cities in the texts with its disappointing consequences. The paper also considers the opposition in African-American and African Diaspora relations as well as the deep-rooted suspicion among the blacks and whites. The paper concludes that political leadership in Africa full of corruption and despots produces disillusioned and the exilic texts.