The paper concludes that communalism could be an African brand of modern nationalism, used to develop the nationalistic and communalistic consciousness of the Ivorian youths who are faced with crude realities of a postcolonial society. Yopougon is not Anderson’s “imagined community” its inhabitants reflect African communal identity that is located in gender complementarities and civic interdependence. It further deconstructs the symbolic Eurocentric paradigms of nationalism because nationalistic consciousness is located in the African definition of “family” and “community” revealed in the setting of Yopougon which contrasts with other spaces that bear the emblem of nationhood in the novel.

Using the postcolonial theory, the paper argues that the epistemology of nationalism, as a forerunner of nationhood, has been inherently encapsulated in African communal identity as manifested in the lives of middle-class dwellers of Yopougon, a suburb of Abidjan. Though Abouet and Oubrerie’s graphic novel could be read as a portrayal of the emerging urban center and its postmodern identities, this study rather investigates how Aya de Yopougon galvanizes juvenile nationalistic consciousness through age-long African communal identity. However, their playful existence turns much darker when Adjoua becomes pregnant, and the baby’s father is the spoiled son of one of the richest and most feared men in the country.Nationalism has become a contested construct because scholars doubt its ideological authenticity and global migratory consciousness, which promotes transcultural / transnational identity, and problematizes its raison d’être.

While Aya dreams of becoming a doctor, her two best friends, Adjoua and Bintou, just like to hang out and spend their evenings dancing, drinking, and flirting with boys. Her dad is a sales rep for a brewery, and certainly gets his fill of the product. Her mom, Fanta, is the neighborhood’s most trusted healer. Boukary Sawadogo, professor of cinema studies at the City College of New York and founding director of the Harlem African Animation Festival, on two programs highlighting animation from Africa, this feature film and a program of shorts.Īdapting her best-selling graphic novel series to film, Marguerite Abouet along with co-director Clément Oubrerie have brought to life the colorful scene of 1970s Yop City in Abidjan in the Ivory Coast.Īya, now 19, grew up in this tight-knit neighborhood and loves its lively open markets, bright fabrics, funky cafés, and omnipresent music. Marguerite Abouet and Clément Oubrerie, 2013, 84 min.įIAF is proud to collaborate with Dr.

Aya of yop city