For a long time, the experiences of the people of colonial Africa were underrepresented in the mainstream literature except for the stereotypical or propagandist narrations by even acclaimed writers such as Joseph Conrad and Rudyard Kipling. Skilled writers weave them both together without either delimiting the aesthetic value of the work or appropriating the content. Literature as an art has never failed to be a form of activism. Its wide spectrum is capable of capturing the nuances of everyday life and traversing the untrodden pages of the past, thus narrating the often untold realities of the socially and politically marginalized. Literature incorporates these differences and prepares the reader to be inclusive of the other. Cervantes’s Don Quixote is a madman in the eyes of those who he encounters and his excessive infatuation towards chivalric romances is what drags him to insanity. Homer’s Odysseus, an intimidating shipwrecked-sailor who is lost in a strange island, represents the modern refugees and their suffering. It gives voice to the voiceless and amplifies that of the silenced. Literature always attempts to address the pressing issues concerning humanity.
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