Paper short abstract:

This paper analyzes the ways in which corporations are posed as villains in works of contemporary African fiction and thereby what possibilities of taking on the role of hero/protagonist are imagined for African individuals and collectivities confronting the local operations of these corporations.

Paper long abstract:

More powerful and affluent than some small countries, multinational corporations exert a tremendous influence on the functioning of global society. This paper analyzes the social impact of corporations across Sub-Saharan Africa by way of its conceptualization in recent works of African fiction – to what thematic and political ends the corporation is posed as villain (antagonist) in these work and thereby what possibilities of taking on the role of hero or protagonist these works thus imagine for African individuals and collectivities confronting the local operations of these corporations.

In analyzing Congolese author In Koli Jean Bofane’s novel _Congo Inc._ and Cameroonian author Imbolo Mbue’s _How Beautiful We Were_, this paper considers to what extent these authors see the operations of corporations within Africa as part of a long line of imperialism stretching back to the days of the large European colonial empires and to what extent they see this as a novel socio-economic phenomenon of our age of neoliberal globalization, as well as to what extent they envision the possibilities of local-level resistance to these forms of economic predation that threaten to stir up military conflict and despoil local ecosystems.