Identity Quest in Yasmina Khadra's What the Day Owes the Night (2008) and Meja Mwangui's The Mzungu Boy (2011)

Abstract

The purpose of our research under the title Identity Quest in Yasmina Khadra’s What the Day Owes the Night (2008) and Meja Mwangi’s The Mzungu Boy (2011) is exploring the common existed affinities between the two aforementioned novels. Our comparative study emphasises on the theme of colonialism, which deeply affected the African nations particularly Algeria and Kenya. Hence, in this regard we have tackled the issue of colonialism and identity in both novels, where Y. Khadra and M. Mwangi portrayed and exposed the same dilemma that their colonized countries suffered from. Moreover, we shed light on Homi Bhabha’s notion of hybdirity since we have found that both works treat this concept, through the two main African characters Jonas and Kariuki who are hybrid boys. To reach our objective in the present research, we appealed to both the Postcolonial and New Historicist theories, and to make it more significant, we have injected a dose of Homi Bhabha’s hybdiridty