ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the third generation or new African Diasporic writers have also reflected Achebe’s aesthetic creed in their writings, but in a different way. Chris Abani has described the new African diasporic writer’s creative project as transnational and liberated from the cultural nationalism found in the writings of the earlier generations of African writers. In The Virgin of Flames, the focalizer through whom Abani articulates this diasporic, postcolonial conjunctive consciousness is the thirty-six-year-old Black, whose Igbo name is Obinna, which means “his father’s heart.” The conjunction of memories enhances Black’s liminality as he seeks to bring to light through his painting and carnivalesque corporeal engagements the repressed inequities and shortcomings of the contemporary world, represented by Los Angeles. Abani’s invocation of Wallace Stevens’ poetic vision in the novel shows his conjunctive consciousness in his creative project. Indeed, his articulation of the transformative power of the art agrees with Stevens’ view of the transformative power of poetry.
