How black is African Noir?: defining blackness through crime fiction

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines African noir as a literary sub-genre that attempts to articulate a revised and updated black Atlantic counterculture (1993). Using the framework provided by Paul Gilroy’s concept of a black Atlantic model of critique, African noir is shown to be transnational and intercultural in many aspects, thereby resisting racist discourses and expanding on conceptualisations of blackness and gender. Two primary texts are selected for analysis: Mukoma Wa Ngugi’s Nairobi Heat (2010) and Leye Adenle’s Easy Motion Tourist (2016). In both novels, detective figures are shown to be transnational, with local, national, or ethnic affiliations and intercultural relations which enable their detection. The article mounts a two-pronged argument. Primarily, both examples of African noir are read as texts which continue the legacy of Gilroy’s pioneering black Atlantic project of uncovering the cultural impact of colonialism and slavery on Africans on the continent and in the African diaspora. Secondarily, by examining the representation of female figures in the selected the texts, the article critically evaluates African noir’s attempt to resist the hegemonic racial and gendered representations of classic noir. To conclude, the article considers how, through the creation of intercultural and intersectional detective trios, the novels explore new black Atlantic race and gender relations, and the potential for solidarity in the face of crime.