Forms of Interreligious Encounter in Contemporary Nigerian Fiction

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Nathan E. Suhr-Sytsma, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 2022-08-30
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the African Studies Association
• License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International
• Final Published Version (URL): https://doi.org/10.1017/asr.2022.78
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: African Studies Review
• Volume: 65
• Issue: 3
• Start Page: 669
• End Page: 691
• Grant/Funding Information: This research was supported in part by the University Research Committee of Emory University.
• Keywords: religion; E. E. Sule; Nigeria; Abubakar Adam Ibrahim; Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; Uwem Akpan; African literature
• Research Categories: Religion, General; Literature, African

Abstract

Africanist scholars continue to debate how best to frame Christian-Muslim encounters. Examining literary fiction that portrays interreligious conflict and dialogue in northern Nigeria, Suhr-Sytsma opens up an exchange between social scientists and Nigerian writers including Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Uwem Akpan, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, and E. E. Sule. Suhr-Sytsma argues that, as social thinkers, Nigerian writers explore interreligious solidarity through forms of doubling and critique forms of sacrifice that authorize scapegoating. Consequently, contemporary Nigerian fiction raises fundamental questions not only about the relation of text to reality but also about the making and crossing of boundaries identified as religious.