Language and power in postcolonial fictions: A study of Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Gravel heart and Desertion

Abstract

The deployment of language in postcolonial fictions continues to draw diverse opinions, especially from proponents who advocate for the use of indigenous languages and those who propose the use of subverted colonial languages. Abdulrazak Gurnah seems to tilt towards the second proposition because his novels are written predominantly in English, which is inflected to bear the burden of his East African historical and cultural experiences. Hence, this essay, hinged on postcolonial theory, examines the postcolonial signposts of cultural nationalism, abrogation and appropriation in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Gravel Heart and Desertion. The method utilised is critical textual analysis and qualitative research. The essay reveals the following. First, Gurnah’s fictions make capital of what is autochthonous by projecting East Africa’s historical and cultural realities disrupted by Arab and European coloniality. Second, Gurnah’s fictions abrogate the English language through the textual strategies of appropriation such as untranslated expressions, code-mixing and code-switching, and subversion, to accentuate aspects of East Africa’s cultural heritage. The essay concludes that there should be a proliferation of postcolonial fictions which are essential
Alao Preorcjah Vol. 10, 2025
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cultural capital that condition the English language to reflect indigenous worldviews and resist linguistic and cultural hegemony and purity.