Africa, the Global Minority

Ayaana as Africa in Yvonne Owuor’s "The Dragonfly Sea"

Abstract

Most postmodern authors narrate societal ills by conferring foregrounded traits to selected characters. Often, the traits ascribed to these individual characters reflect events that affect the bigger or larger society outside the text. Published in 2019, Yvonne A. Owuor’s The Dragonfly Sea, to a great degree, encompasses this aspect of postmodern fiction. The novel revolves around the life of the Pate island-born Ayaana. From her relationship with her mother, Munira; to her obsession with Muhiddin; to her experience with rape; to her expedition at sea en route to China then to Turkey; and her eventual experiences in foreign lands and back to Pate, Ayaana’s experiences provide the image of a character whose tribulations depict the challenges faced by the poor, girls/women and black minority people in the postmodern world. This paper analyzes the extent to which the author uses Ayaana’s experiences as a microcosm of Africa as a minority in the global socio-political and economic interactions. Guided by Spivak’s “Can the Subaltern Speak”, the paper explores incidences where this character [and others] is treated as “the other” and establish how this treatment accurately serves as a representation of the treatment of Africa as a minority in global affairs.