Sex and the human consciousness in select Nigerian novels

Abstract

Before now, sex was a taboo in African literature. However, emerging voices rebel against this reticence. Among such new voices and works are Nigeria‟s: Adichie‟s Half of a Yellow Sun (2006), Habila‟s Waiting for an Angel (2002) and Atta‟s Everything Good Will Come (2005). These novels represent aesthetics of sex in Nigerian fiction. Adopting the postmodern theory this paper argues that these writers‟ engagement with sex assaults Nigeria‟s established literary conventions and that an open approach to sex liberates writers and readers from the strictures of convention and widens the possibilities of knowledge accruable from literary subject.