This essay explores the stereotypes of Africa and the Africans in the novels of McCall Smith’s Series “The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency”. Drawing on the ways in which the masternarrative of the empire constructed and represented Africa and the Africans, and on the features of detective fiction as a literary genre, the essay argues that the Series constructs a non-existent Africa. Simple, naïve, exemplary figures of goodness, the African characters in the novels appear as children to be scolded, and the African landscape pays tribute to Romantic images of wilderness and Eden. McCall Smith’s Africa seems to be a placebo for a Western readership, by ignoring the specificities and problems of African countries in contemporary history while representing them according to Western colonial categories.
Il saggio esamina lo stereotipo dell’Africa e degli africani nei romanzi della serie “The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” di Alexander McCall Smith. Cogliendo le suggestioni teoriche sulla costruzione e l’invenzione dell’Altro nella masternarrative dell’impero e facendo riferimento al genere letterario del detective fiction, il saggio argomenta come l’Africa e gli africani della Serie rappresentino un’Africa che non c’è. I personaggi sono semplicistici, infantili e ingenui, e il paesaggio viene rappresentato romanticamente come un eden selvaggio. L’Africa di McCall Smith sembra essere un placebo per un pubblico di lettori occidentali, poiché ignora le specificità e i problemi dei singoli paesi africani nella storia contemporanea, dipingendoli invece coerentemente con un’immagine esotica e primitiva tipica della costruzione occidentale dell’Altro.
The Africa That Is Not : la serie The N°1 Ladies Detective Agency' di Alexander McCall Smith / C. Gualtieri - In: Culture 18 : (2004)Milano : Montedit, 2012. - ISBN 978-88-6587-2581. - pp. 259-273
The Africa That Is Not : la serie The N°1 Ladies Detective Agency' di Alexander McCall Smith
C. GualtieriPrimo
2012
Abstract
This essay explores the stereotypes of Africa and the Africans in the novels of McCall Smith’s Series “The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency”. Drawing on the ways in which the masternarrative of the empire constructed and represented Africa and the Africans, and on the features of detective fiction as a literary genre, the essay argues that the Series constructs a non-existent Africa. Simple, naïve, exemplary figures of goodness, the African characters in the novels appear as children to be scolded, and the African landscape pays tribute to Romantic images of wilderness and Eden. McCall Smith’s Africa seems to be a placebo for a Western readership, by ignoring the specificities and problems of African countries in contemporary history while representing them according to Western colonial categories.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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