An Echo that Bounds: A Neo-Colonial Reading of Helon Habila’s Waiting for an Angel

Abstract

After independence, and the hope of having a better continent failed, African Writers no longer write to regain Africa’s lost dignity or culture, rather they write about neocolonialism and how African nations have remained impoverished due to greed and selfishness on the part of our leaders . African writers in their various works echo their penchant to expose the social and political ills that are prevalent in their countries; their thematic preoccupations center on the torture, disillusionment, dictatorship, war, revolution, tribal hatred, human right violations, decadence and above all, life of disenchantment of the common man. Before now, African Literature used to be the medium for celebrating the heroic splendor of the African past; later it became a means for anti-colonial struggle and presently, it is a great channel for the portrayal of post independence disillusionment that has ravaged the African nations. Therefore, this paper makes an attempt to explicate Helon Habila’s Waiting for an Angel as a contemporary African fiction, showing how Habila successfully unmasked the frightening and excruciating existence of the masses in his immediate society and of course, the possible 
solutions on how to put an end to some of these monumental injustices and subjugation meted out to the masses. Therefore, this study focuses on neo-colonial discourses to capture the disenchanted African society, particularly Nigeria. Showing our leaders 
involvement in amplifying: poverty, divide and rule, ethnic and tribal wars, hatred, injustices, despair, alienation and the like which are colonialists brainchild.