A Geocritical Study of Selected Works of Ahmadou Kourouma in Relation to the Contemporary Security Challenges in Nigeria

Realism in the African literature manifests itself in several forms and strata: some simple, some interwoven, some outrightly complex. Geocriticism is a realist study focusing on geographical setting captured in literary texts in order to unravel the interplay between geography, people and cultures. Here, it is aimed at analyzing the complexities of the consequences inherent in the artificial and arbitrary colonial boundaries imposed on Africa at the Berlin Conference of 1884/1885. Geography of course deals with physical land and territorial features, but no geography can be detached from the culture of the inhabitant people. This paper therefore examines through two works of Kourouma: The Suns of Independence and Allah is not Obliged some implications of cross- border geo-cultural relationship among the affected peoples. This has enabled the research study to appraise the contemporary security challenges in Nigerian in relation to the geo- cultural affinities of nationalities spreading across the Nigerian boundary linesinto neighbouring countries.

Keywords: Geocriticism, Kourouma, Boundaries, Nigeria, Security Challenges.