The Ethnic Novel: Impediment or Facilitator of Nationhood?

The Example of James Onyebuchi Ile’s Verses of Uncharted Heaven: The Second Coming of Biafra

Abstract

―The Ethnic Novel: Impediment or Facilitator of Nationhood?‖ questions the role of literature (and the arts) in engendering nationhood in Nigeria. It does this through the examination of James Ile’s ethnically declarative novel, Verses of Uncharted Heaven; The Second Coming of Biafra. The paper argues that the novel and, indeed, all literature can facilitate or impair the spirit of nationhood, depending on the author’s deployment of the literary codes such as imagery, symbolism, point of view etc., which he or she has chosen to communicate through. It concludes that the novel under study impairs rather than promote the spirit of nationhood.