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The Troubleed Image of Africa in Shilia Kaaya's Poetry
(Contemporary Journal of African Studies, 2017) Mwaifuge, Eliah S.
This paper examines representations of Africa in Shilia Kaaya’s poetry. Kaaya’s The Bleeding Heart and other Poems (2009) features thirty-eight poems covering diverse themes. This paper focuses on ten poems which are devoted to colonialism, neo-colonialism and political problems besetting contemporary Africa. It argues that Kaaya’s poetry interrogates the dynamics of colonialism, neo-colonialism and the political problems in Africa and their effect on the development of Africa. It demonstrates how Kaaya’s poems raise salient issues about how Africa’s development — economically and politically, is undermined by both the European coloniser and Africans themselves. The Archetypal approach, which describes images found in a variety of poems written by a single poet, is applied to enhance understanding of the core message (s) of the poems.