Alterity of “The Road” in Selected African Cities in Niyi Osundare’s If Only The Road Could Talk

Abstract

This essay argues that the concept of “The Road” in certain cities is a constant pattern in Niyi Osundare’s If Only The Road Could Talk (2017). In this collection of poems, the recurrence of “The Road” reveals certain dynamic interplay between the “Self” and the “Other” as the poet journeys through Africa, Asia and Europe. Osundare’s odyssey opens an engaging space for him to re-think human experiences in the city life such as self re-assessment, boundary re-negotiation, neo-colonialism, migration and international politics as instances of alterity as the Self encounters the Other. Using the Alterity Theory of James Richard Mensch in Hiddeness and Alterity: Philosophical and Literary Sightings of the Unseen , therefore, this essay sees “The Road” in Osundare’s poems as a humanist pathway to discover  the sameness in the “otherness” of cities in the world  as the Self peregrinates other roads for alterities. Mensch’s Alterity Theory justifiably explains Osundare’s peregrinations because aspects of the theory support a literary comparison of the Self and the Other as well as how the Self encounters the Other in a journey. Germane issues like cultural diversity, ethical varieties, and re-examination of differences are few of the decipherable alterities in this transnational poetic trip on “The Road” of human cities.

Keywords: alterity, “The Road”, City, Self, Other