Telling the Untold: An Intertextual Reading of the Socio-Political Dynamics of Africa’s Participation in World War II in Rotimi Babatunde’s Bombay’s Republic

Abstract

It is known that African soldiers who were conscripted by the imperialist rulers such as Britain and France contributed to the ending of World War II fought by the Axis countries across Europe, Africa and the East. However, very little literature exists on the contribution of these African soldiers and the experiences they gathered. Much literature does not also exist on the causes that eventually led to the reformation of their mind-set regarding their identity and position vis-à-vis the colonialists. Babatunde provides in his story, Bombay’s Republic, a serious yet exciting and humorous insight into these untold stories of African soldiers. This paper uses the qualitative method of research and applies Julia Kristeva’s intertextuality to the language and narrative techniques of the story. Through a literary analysis of the story, it is discovered that the social and political background of the text provides a depth of dialogic interplay. This dialogic interplay of texts informs the interpretations of the narrative in order to reveal possible meanings. And all these possible meanings speak to three pertinent issues: African identity, independence and the current state of leadership on the continent.