'I Cannot Be My Mother's Son': The Politics of Identity and Reading Otherwise in Contemporary Nigerian Literature

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This thesis reads contemporary Nigerian literature otherwise using the theoretical framework of Donald Winnicott to develop the scope of decolonial studies. In this unique study, I turn object-relations, or ego development theory, into a political lens to explore the recent shift in Nigeria's literary narrative. I interrogate the parent-child paradigms underpinning this fiction and relate them to a political framework which claims Nigeria is a country 'stagnated': tied to cycles of violence and dependency. My study shows how authors are using literature to counter this narrative by curating 'potential' and writing a future beyond colonialism.