Storying disillusionment : a decolonial reading of selected plays by Cheela Chilala, Blessing Hungwe, and Dunduzu Chisiza Jr

This study offers a retroactive decolonial reading of two selected plays from each of the countries of Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Malawi, previously governed by the British under the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. With the independence of the two countries in 1964 and Zimbabwe in 1980, I considered a duration of at least ten years of post- independence to bring these contexts to bear on the selected plays. Therefore, the study examines play texts written or performed between 1990 and 2019. I chose the playwrights Cheela Chilala (Zambia), Blessing Hungwe (Zimbabwe), and Dunduzu Chisiza Jr. (Malawi) for their significant contributions to contemporary playwriting due to critical acclaim and cultural relevance in their respective countries. A central thread that connects all these texts is that of disillusionment with post- independence, postcolonial contexts. Using a constructivist research paradigm, critical discourse analysis as a methodological approach, and script analysis as a method, the study seeks possible traces of colonial patterns of power that continued to shape post-independence regimes and cultural production, and maps how the plays expose various typologies of postcolonial disillusionment manifested through political betrayal, cultural alienation, and socio-economic inequalities. The study demonstrates that, despite not intentionally writing with decoloniality in mind, the play texts, arguably shaped by comparable historical, cultural, and socio-political conditions in their respective countries, reveal decolonial resonances, positioning the play texts as a space for epistemic resistance and cultural reclamation. The study expands the scope of decolonial literary discourse in Southern Africa and makes an original contribution to existing knowledge by means of its retroactive decolonial reading of the plays. Moreover, it contributes to global discussions on the lasting effects of colonial legacies in the Global South.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Pretoria

Year dc:date.issued

2026

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Coetzee, Marie-Heleen

• UCTD
• Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
• Cheela Chilala (Zambia)
• Blessing Hungwe (Zimbabwe)
• Dunduzu Chisiza Jr. (Malawi)
• Decolonial reading
• Story disillusionment

Statement dc:rights

• © 2024 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria.

Language dc:language.iso

en

DOI

N/A

Dc Identifier Other

A2026

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.up.ac.za:2263/108328