EXPLORING THE REPRESENTATION OF INDIGENOUS ANAMBRA FOLKTALES IN CONTEMPORARY NIGERIAN YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE

Abstract

The Nigerian indigenous folktales are important storage of cultural information, ethical teachings and societal belonging to the Igbo community of the Anambra State. The paper will analyze how the indigenous folktales of Anambra have been represented in modern Nigerian young adult (YA) literature, focusing on how oral traditional folktales are modified, redefined, or sidelined in the modern texts that target this readership (13-18). The study will relying on a mixed sources approach explore how far the folktale characteristics like motifs of trickster animals, moral dilemmas, and supernatural creatures are incorporated in YA novels, and how they can be better incorporated in the school and home context to promote the preservation of culture. The study was carried out in urban and rural settings of the Anambra state such as Abagala, Aba, Enuguwu-Ukwu, Awka, Onitsha and Nnewi involving 100 secondary school students, 10 YA authors and 10 traditional storytellers who were purposively sampled. Primary data was collected by using semi-structured interviews, focus groups, questionnaires, and textual analysis of 10 modern YA novels. The qualitative data showed the themes of cultural hybridity and antiwestern influences whereas quantitative data showed that two-thirds of the students favored the character of stories that are based on folktales and their problems with contemporary life. The sample population was mostly Igbo, with a mean age of 15.5 years, 52 percent females and an equal distribution of urban and rural. It uses the postcolonial theory and the morphological theory developed by Propp to unravel the narrative structures and also how folktales can give power to young readers in the face of globalization. Findings highlight a loophole in more realistic presentation, with only forty percent of the reviewed novels using unmodified motifs of Anambra locality. The suggested model supports the idea of shared authorship and curriculum design. The study is relevant to the literature field as it helps to combine oral and written to uphold cultural sustainability in Nigerian YA literature.