All The New Things We Learned to Love: A Novel
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All the New Things We Learned to Love is a bildungsroman centered on an eight-year-old boy and his family: a quiet, educated father; a mischievous, smart-talking sister, and his uneducated, “Western-centric” driven mother. Gbenga, the protagonist and a peripheral narrator, comes of age to the effects of colonialism and the influence of Western civilization on his family and community through an often-contentious relationship he shares with his mother. In many ways, his mother becomes a lens, as well as a narrative vehicle to observe the progression and the regression of identity and the self as a result of the Western hegemonic pressure in post-colonial Africa. This project looks to explore these effects, specifically, at a more domestic, familial level.