Entre afetos e desafetos: uma análise dialógica do conto "The Dreamer's Litany" de Arinze Ifeakandu

Abstract

In God’s Children Are Little Broken Things (2022), Nigerian author Arinze Ifeakandu presents nine short stories that explore the vulnerabilities of queer love between men in Nigeria. The short story “The Dreamer’s Litany” highlights this fragility through the relationship between Auwal, a Hausa shopkeeper, and Chief Emeka, an Igbo businessman. Their emotional connection is mediated through the use of Pidgin English and Hausa, while disconnection intensifies when Chief Emeka uses Igbo, a language unknown to Auwal. The objective of this study is to analyze how language acts as a mediator of affective relationships in the story, capable of both bringing characters closer and creating distance. The investigation seeks to understand how a shared language can function as a unifying element, while a lack of understanding of another can generate emotional ruptures. The analysis is based on the theories of Mikhail Bakhtin (2014; 2020), who views language as a worldview and an ideological sign, and Valentin Voloshinov (2019), who considers language a social and dynamic phenomenon, developed through human interaction. Both emphasize that the meaning of words exists only within a shared discourse. The findings show that language, while bringing Auwal and Chief Emeka closer, also acts as an agent of disconnection. Communication failures reflect identity, ethnic, and social tensions, exposing the complex affective and cultural dynamics that permeate the characters’ relationship in the Nigerian context.