Exploring the Interplay Between Reconciliation Fiction and Satirical Fiction in Okpewho Isidore's The Last Duty

Both African Literature and Literatures from other continents have their subjects of their discussion, among others, centred on utopia, dystopia, politics, Eco-Literature and mannerpunks. Hence, there have been paucity of works that discussed interplay between satirical fiction and reconciliation fiction especially using Isidore Okpewho’s The Last Duty which this paper tried to uncover. This research is subjected to Edward Said’s postcolonial theory of “intellectual representations” (1996), where he submitted that the duty of the intellectuals is to transform the society with their dramatic sense and catching audience’s attention to be better wits in their society. The findings of this study revealed the interplay between satirical and reconciliation fictions as Okpewho exposed the evil perpetrated by Nigerian soldiers during the Nigerian civil war. This is satirical as it revealed the excesses of Nigerian soldiers and the members of the privileged bourgeois class who took ‘’belongings’’ of the disadvantaged. As a reconciliation fiction, the readers understood that going into farming would save more lives than going into the army as farming is one of the components of reconciliation fiction. Therefore, this paper posited that the satirical fiction and reconciliation fiction are intertwined but not all satirical fictions proffer solutions to the ills of the society but all reconciliation fictions do proffer solutions to the abnormalities of individuals, leadership and government.