| dc.description.abstract | This study focused attention on Dawood's three selected works thus No Strings Attached, Water under the Bridge. and Return to Paradise. It exposes the sub-textual distinct identities that mark the three major communities populating the East African setting despite the author's professed vision of racial integration. Progressing from the first "text, which is also the earliest in setting, the study starts by establishing the author's social vision 'of racial integration. It then proceeds to highlight the apparent subtexts which underlie this vision. These subtexts always punch holes in the writer's integration attempts. The study has in brief looked at what has already been done on Dawood and or his works within the literary circles and the newspaper reviews. Other works/studies that directly relate to the topic have also been considered. We, however, note that the writer and his works have not attracted much critical and sustained attention. Moreso, the quest for identity as it informs his works has not been explored either. The study paid attention to the author's background at it comes out in Yesterday Today and Tomorrow and Off My Chest. It established the genesis of Dawood's writing career, a departure from his mainstream surgical profession. The emphasis in all this, however, is the impact it has on his ideology and general outlook as they come out in his works. For instance, the study has noted the writer's tendency to project the West as the ideal - in education, mannerisms, apparel, We therefore postulate that the writer's stay and training in the UK plus his mixed marriage have influenced his outlook. This IS In recognition of the view that every mother thinks her son is a leopard for strength. For guidance, we combined the postcolonial and the traditional historicism theoretical approaches. Post colonial was necessitated by the fact that the works so selected span different colonial eras in their settings thus before, during and after the attainment of political independence. The .study comparatively considered these works to establish whether the identities which were incepted during colonialism are still propagated within the works that are set later on, given the changes the advent of independence heralded. Postcolonial also signaled "a position against the universalist yardstick" of gauging things which is itself euro centered. This is in recognition of the different experiences that communities go through that are mostly region-specific. On the other hand, traditional historicism has been militated for by the historical experiences, which form the background of the selected texts. The study adopted the 'traditional' as opposed to the 'new' since we demarcate between the literary text which we designate as the object of value and therefore fore grounded, from the historical text which is of lessee worth and hence merely forms the background. Overall, we considered the quest for identity within the confines 0 f class, race, social affairs and marriage, religion and cultural aspects as they come out in the selected texts. The writer's treatment of these concerns will serve as a pointer to his position in relation to the three component communities on the East African scene. His other works have provided secondary or reference material In as much as the inertextuality has enriched the study's findings. In conclusion, it is the conviction of the study that what comes through in Dawood's writings so far is 'cocktail integration'. Meaningful integration still eludes him, as the three component communities still stand distinct, attesting to his quest for identity. | en |
