Hopeful resistance and solidarity from below in Imbolo Mbue's "How Beautiful We Were"
By examining the discourse of hope and resistance in Imbolo Mbue's "How Beautiful We Were" (2021), which narrates the emergence of a solidarity movement and protest in a fictional West African country, this article engages with the theory of political solidarity within the framework o...
| Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | article |
| Publication Date: | 2024 |
| Country: | España |
| Institution: | Universidad de Cantabria (UC) |
| Repository: | UCrea Repositorio Abierto de la Universidad de Cantabria |
| Language: | English |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:repositorio.unican.es:10902/35732 |
| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10902/35732 |
| Access Level: | Open access |
| Keyword: | Imbolo Mbue How Beautiful We Were Solidarity from below Hope Radical love Solidaridad desde abajo Esperanza Amor radical |
| Summary: | By examining the discourse of hope and resistance in Imbolo Mbue's "How Beautiful We Were" (2021), which narrates the emergence of a solidarity movement and protest in a fictional West African country, this article engages with the theory of political solidarity within the framework of contemporary African necropolitics (Mbembe 2003; 2019). The protagonists' acts of resistance against their government, which exposes them to death at the hands of Western neocolonialism, illustrate the capacity of the African oppressed majority to work together in a spirit of hope for an improvement in their living conditions, namely through building solidarity networks as a strategy of subversion and survival. In this sense, while various forms of solidarity surface throughout the novel, I argue that Robin Zheng's (2023) notion of "solidarity from below" as a form of power available to the otherwise powerless is the one that prevails. More specifically, the tragic ending of the story allows to critically reflect on Zheng's debate on the limitations of group emotional cohesion in achieving sociopolitical transformation. Along these lines, I identify "How Beautiful We Were" as a literary call for renewed forms of African political solidarity that must be forged and maintained by the oppressed masses not merely through hope but, fundamentally, through radical love. |
|---|