The condemnation of homosexuality by Pentecostal discourse and the negation of the condemnation in Chinelo Okparanta’s Under the Udala Trees: a dialogical analysis

• Autor(a) principal: Menezes, Pedro José Garcia de
• Data de Publicação: 2024
• Outros Autores: Melo Júnior, Orison Marden Bandeira de
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Cadernos do IL (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://seer.ufrgs.br/index.php/cadernosdoil/article/view/134963

Anglophone queer African literature has become known in recent years with the publication of several novels, such as Chinelo Okparanta’s Under the Udala Trees, our object of analysis. In it, the main character Ijeoma experiences conflicts between her sexual orientation and anti-homosexuality Pentcostal dogmas. We thus seek to understand the role that the anti-homosexuality authoritative discourse of Pentecostalism plays in the construction of the protagonist, based on Bakhtin’s theory of the novel and on Africans’ and Africanists’ studies on the influence of religious fundamentalism on the lives of LGBTQIAPN+ in Africa. We concluded that the author created a character who, even oppressed by anti-homosexuality authoritative discourse of Pentecostalism, is capable of questioning it and thus refusing it.