Main Article Content
Migration, Human Trafficking and the Literary Praxis in Ifowodo’s The Grip of the Cartel and Farewell to Eldorado
Abstract
The dawn of the new millennium ushered in new forms of writings that are at variance with those of the preceding epoch both in thematic preoccupation and creative aesthetics. Unlike the works of their predecessors who explored national tragedies: military dictatorship, corruption, and political and economic rupture, in the Nigerian social space, Ifowodo and his contemporaries grapple with the vagaries of migration and human trafficking. This paper examines Ifowodo’s works, A Grip of the Cartel (a play) and Farewell to Eldorado (a novel), in the light of the above rubric. In these works, Ifowodo explores social dislocations as the primary cause of emigration and human trafficking and the consequent tragedy it imposes on the Nigerian socio-political environment. The paper concludes that Ifowodo's works are a prism through which the burgeoning maladies of migration and human trafficking are evaluated.