Faction, kitsch and seditious sexuality as strategic motifs in Nelson George’s <i>Night Work</i>

This paper critiqued the nascent interface between postmodernist literary dispositions and African American fiction by exploring certain postmodern techniques as strategic motifs in Nelson George’s Night Work. Some contemporary literary scholarships have described African American fiction as monotonous, and not experimental enough in the postmodern sense. Other positions designate postmodernism as an ideology completely incompatible with postcolonial black experience. Although these have continued to generate polemics, scholars are yet to thoroughly evaluate counterperspectives of postmodern trends in African American literature. This study therefore examined postmodern practice as a trope in contemporary black American writings. Jean Francois Lyotard’s rejection of metanarratives, complemented by critical reaction to postmodern techniques such as faction, kitsch, and seditious sexuality, are adopted as pivotal theoretical approaches in this study. This paper therefore submits that Night Work encapsulates an innovative disposition to different postmodern techniques, namely faction, kitsch, and undisguised use of vulgar expressions, all peculiar to postmodern writings, and as such, establishes and justifies the innovative presence of postmodern techniques in contemporary African American literature.