Festus Iyayi’s fiction and the revolutionary imperative: A study of Violence and Heroes

Abstract

Festus Iyayi is among African writers who believe that the novelist’s responsibility does not stop at simply diagnosing and exposing the social and political evils that bedevil contemporary society and that the novelist should also proffer solutions to the predicaments which confound the masses. In Violence and Heroes Iyayi locates the root cause of the people’s travails in the class structure of the contemporary Nigerian society. His protagonists not only become conscious of social injustice, capitalist exploitation and class antagonism; they also understand the need for a new order and that only a revolutionary confrontation of the capitalist establishment can redeem their class and enthrone justice in the society.