Liminality in Tanzanian Young Adult fiction

Résumé

Common in many young adult novels are the challenges of transitioning from childhood to adulthood. During this transition, young adult characters take on ambiguous statuses and responsibilities. The liminal or threshold state is the term used to describe this transition. This article examines the transition along with how the young adult characters in selected Tanzanian young adult novels navigate it: The Birthday Party (2013) by Mkama Mwijarubi, The Temporary Orphan (2014) by Hussein Tuwa, The Adventures of Kulwa and Doto (2017) by Hussein Kayera, and If She Were Alive (2019) by Deus Lubacha. In this case, liminality serves as a framework for analysing the portrayal of the precariousness of the transition and the different strategies that young adult characters use to reveal just how the transition is both limiting and enabling. Nonetheless, given the disparity in power between the young adults and their parents/guardians, and awareness of their vulnerability, the young adult characters invent different strategies to pretend to be conforming to parental expectations while simultaneously crafting alternative ways to expose the shortcomings of the adult society. Many of the tensions in the texts can be attributed to the parents and the young adult characters’ differing ideas of what it means to be a child and an adult. Put otherwise, the notions of childhood and adulthood are just as elusive as the transition itself.