The Convergence of Self and History in Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s This Child Will Be Great and Joe Khamisi’s Dash Before Dusk: A Slave Descendant’s Journey in Freedom

Abstract

This study examines convergence of self and history in Ellen Johnson Sirleaf‘s This Child will be Great and Joe Khamisi‘s Dash before Dusk: A Slave’s Descendant’s Journey in Freedom. The autobiographies contain personal and collective memories. Sirleaf captures a period in the Republic of Liberia, a West African nation‘s history and Khamisi‘s autobiography is a good record of East Africa specifically Kenya‘s immediate history beginning from colonial to post-independence times. The study is guided by the autobiographical and new historicism literary theories. The objectives of this study are to discuss the convergence of self and history in the selected autobiographies, to examine how the authors inscribe themselves into the histories of their countries through their autobiographies and to interrogate how the autobiographers interpret the history of their nations through their life narratives. The study is divided into three chapters and a conclusion. Chapter one forms the background of the study. In chapter two, I discuss self-inscription in Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf‘s This Child will be Great, and in chapter three I interrogate how Joe Khamisi recalls and interprets personal and collective memories in his autobiography Dash Before Dusk: A Slave’s Descendant’s Journey in Freedom. I have done a brief comparison of the two autobiographies in the conclusion. I have highlighted the similarities and differences in the writing style and on the reflections of the two autobiographers that lead to the convergence of self and history. The study aims to advance knowledge on self and history in autobiographies.