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Neocolonialism

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Narratives of Inequality

Part of the book series: New Comparisons in World Literature ((NCWL))

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Abstract

This chapter examines the many African writers who documented the continuation of Western economic control under neocolonialism in the decolonisation period. The twentieth-century shift from British colonial imperialism to American financial imperialism is documented in fiction by Waguih Ghali, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Thomas Akare and is attuned to global geopolitics and the development of underdevelopment in the Global South. In the face of ongoing poverty, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Ken Saro-Wiwa, and Ghali lampoon the comprador elite’s absurd concentrations of wealth and the rhetoric of progress and development that clashes with everyday lived reality. Following the 2008 financial crisis, satire has again emerged to critique capitalist inequality and condemn the absurdity of a financial system riven by contradictions, lies, and myths.

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  1. University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Melissa Kennedy

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  1. Melissa Kennedy
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Correspondence to Melissa Kennedy .

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Kennedy, M. (2017). Neocolonialism. In: Narratives of Inequality. New Comparisons in World Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59957-1_3

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