Humanitarian Fictions

Megan Cole Paustian is Associate Professor of English at North Central College.

Introduction: The White Savior Narrative and the Third Sector Novel 1 1. The Moral Cause 33 2. The Emancipated African 67 3. The Universal Human 101 4. The Benevolent Gift 134 5. The Nongovernmental Organization 169 Epilogue: Rearticulating the Humanitarian Atlantic 207 Acknowledgments 215 Notes 219 Works Cited 251 Index 267

. . . [A]n original essay studying the engagement of both colonial and postcolonial literary texts with humanitarian discourse. Paustian persuasively traces this grand narrative, heavily driven by white missionary saviorism, to the moral outlook to save the less fortunate. The narrative is resilient and adjustable. . . Highly recommended.-- "Choice Reviews" Years ago, I discovered that novels by African authors could be inspiring sources for researching current and past African affairs. Noticing that Megan Cole Paustian drew on this kind of sources to present her argument about the problems of contemporary humanitarian efforts in Africa, I was immediately enthralled. . . [A] highly recommended reading . . .---Stanislaw Grodz, Verbum Humanitarian Fictions manages throughout to be critical without being dismissive and constructs a humanitarian vision that is acutely sensitive to its own predicament.---Jeanne-Marie Jackson, Johns Hopkins University Paustian shows how imaginative literature by African writers equips us to move beyond Eurocentric representations of Africa that depend on colonialist and naive neoliberal ideas. The book sets out engaging readings of African literature, using the notion of 'humanitarian fictions' as an analytical category and a political challenge that takes us toward big questions of ethics, history, and ongoing human interactions.---Olakunle George, Brown University