Adjusted Lives: Stories of Structural Adjustments (African Writers Library) - Softcover

Balogun, Fidelis Odun

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0865434875 ISBN 13: 9780865434875

Publisher: Africa World Pr, 1995

Synopsis

Adjusted Lives is a completed short story cycle which is divided into three parts, each of which contains three stories. The nine stories altogether constituting the collection propose a unified thesis: the now infamous Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) is not really a contemporary phenomenon but only the contemporary manifestation of a four-century old phenomenon. African lives, the stories depict, have systematically been adjusted in the interest of, and by the merchants, priests, politicians, soldiers, and economists of the Western World since the seventeenth century; the only changes observable being in the external forms of the packaging, and not in the inner essence of the adjustment.
Part one, subtitled The Philosophy, presents images of African lives adjusting to the brutal realities of slavery, colonialism, and post-independence external exploitations in three respective stories. The next three stories in part two, The Heresies, oppose the philosophy of adjustment in part one with images of heroes who uphold African tradition, philosophy of existence, heroic leadership, and self-reliance in the pursuit of development. The last division, The Restoration, shows how African lives are once more being violently adjusted by external agencies during the contemporary era of SAP. A housewife, a student, and a university professor are respectively the representative victim protagonists in the three stories in this section. The collection ends optimistically, envisaging a final end to the centuries-old external adjustments of African lives.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Adjusted Lives is a completed short story cycle which is divided into three parts, each of which contains three stories. The nine stories altogether constituting the collection propose a unified thesis: the now infamous Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) is not really a contemporary phenomenon, but only the contemporary manifestation of a four-century-old phenomenon.

About the Author:

Dr. F. Odun Balogun is now professor at Delaware State University, Dover.

About this edition

• Publisher: Africa World Pr
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0865434875
• ISBN 13: 9780865434875
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 125