Gragoatá (Dec 2005)
Humor as aesthetics and identity gun in the works of Dany Laferrière and Yinka Shonibare
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to articulate the Canadian writer of Haitian descent, Dany Laferrière (1953-) autobiography, Une autobiographie américaine, to the work of the British of Nigerian descent, Yinka Shonibare (1962-), depicting mainly their usage of humour, transgression and parody of values and stereotypes concerning Black people. It's important to show how these two diasporic artists, born at the second half of the 20th century, living in between their home countries and the imperial centers, inscribe themselves in Westem tradition, using humour as an aesthetical and identiterian instrument in order to demonstrate a deep consciousness of subalternization they live, due to historical reasons, as well as the gap between their self image and the one that society's mirror reflects, which is deformed and caricatural.
