Projections of a Return to Peace in Francis Imbuga’s The Return of Mgofu and John Ruganda’s Shreds of Tenderness: Relevance to Post-Genocide Rwanda.

Abstract

Since independence, the African continent has witnessed varying degrees of conflict and instability. In some cases, these conflicts have been upheavals, easily quelled while in others they have threatened to cripple nations. This state of affairs has been imagined on the post-independence African literary landscape which has seen a wide range of conflict literatures. This paper seeks to examine the dramatization of conflict and the projection of possibilities of hope and peace in two dramas: The Return of Mgofu by Imbuga (2011) and Shreds of Tenderness by Ruganda (2001). The paper aims at comparing and contrasting the nature of conflict in the two dramas. This shall be followed by an interrogation of how similarly and/or differently the two playwrights project various possibilities of a return to peace. This analysis will also seek to answer the troubling question with regard to conflicts in Africa: Is it possible to have reconciliation and return to peace without retributive justice? While one of the dramas emphasizes the need for perpetrators to pay penance for wrongs done, the other advocates for withdrawal into the spiritual world of traditional African religion in the search for cohesion – restorative justice. This paper shall utilize sociological theories of literary criticism and the semiotics paradigm in literary criticism. The sociological theories shall be used to probe conflict as presented in the dramas as an incident of the prevalent social struggles, while the semiotics theory shall be used to read the use of symbolism and metaphor in projecting possibilities towards amity.