Epochal Relevance of Selected Post Millennial Short Stories in East Africa

Abstract

Literary writers in Africa have used different genres of art to reflect and critique actions in thesociety at different points of history. Apart from entertaining and preserving culture, works ofart have a role in creating awareness among the audience and proposing action in the society.The pre-colonial, colonial and pre-millennium texts have received significant literary attentionwith reference to their concerns. Most studies in Africa for example tend to focus on canonicalwriters and their contributions to the political and economic developments in the society.However, many post millennial short stories have received minimal critical attention. Thispaper, therefore, examines the socio-cultural and economic resurgence in selected postmillennium short stories in East Africa in order to find out the kind of society that upcomingwriters are yearning for, thus revealing the major concerns of short stories written in the 21stcentury. Post-colonial theory guides the analysis done in this paper and helps in demonstratinghow the Millennium Development Goals influenced the thematic concerns in the five (5) shortstories under discussion, which are all written by emerging post-millennial writers. The paperargues that 21st Century writers are sensitive to issues affecting their society and they, in theprocess of writing, attempt to propose ways of societal transformation through literature. Thepaper gives variety and contributes to the existing reservoir of literary analysis in East Africa.