Postmodernism: The Story That Knows It Is a Story – European Literary Traditions Two (Senior 6 Literature in English) | Ganzaa

European Literary Traditions Two

Lessons

Senior 6 · Literature in English

European Literary Traditions Two

5 lessons

Lesson 4 of 5

Postmodernism: The Story That Knows It Is a Story

25 min

A story that knows it is a story

Read this short passage, written for this lesson.

This story begins on a bus from Huye to Kigali, although it could begin anywhere. I have chosen the bus because you, reader, have probably sat on one, and I want you comfortable before I disappoint you. On the bus sits a woman called Mukamana. I gave her that name an hour ago; before that she was called Uwera, and she was a man.

Mukamana is carrying a letter. You expect me to tell you what is in it, because that is what letters in stories are for. I could. Instead, let me tell you that three other writers have already used a letter on a bus, and that each of them ended the story at the bus station, with the letter opened and everyone in tears. I refuse to do that. The bus is now passing Nyanza. The letter remains sealed. If you want an ending, you may write one in the margin; it will be as true as mine.

Ganzaa, illustrative passage (2026)

Most readers find this passage either irritating or delightful, and often both. It breaks almost every rule of the realist story: the narrator interrupts, admits he invented the character a moment ago, talks to the reader directly, mentions other stories, and refuses to finish. Each of those moves is a technique of Postmodernism.

Definition

Postmodernism: the movement in literature and the arts from about 1945 onwards that distrusts single, final truths and plays openly with form, often by drawing attention to the text as something made.
metafiction: fiction that draws attention to itself as fiction, for example by having the narrator discuss how the story is being written.
intertextuality: the way one text refers to, borrows from or answers other texts.
pastiche: a work that imitates the style of other works, often by mixing several, as a playful tribute. Parody imitates in order to mock.
magical realism: a style in which impossible events are told in the same calm, realistic manner as everyday ones.
grand narrative (metanarrative): a large story that claims to explain everything, such as "history is constant progress". The French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard (1979) defined the postmodern attitude as disbelief in such stories.

Analysing the passage

Words in the passage	Technique	Effect on the reader
"although it could begin anywhere"; "I gave her that name an hour ago"	Metafiction: the narrator exposes his choices	We see the story as constructed, not as a window on the world
"you, reader"	Direct address (second person)	The reader becomes a character in the game
"three other writers have already used a letter on a bus"	Intertextuality and self-conscious use of convention	Our expectations are named and then refused
"The letter remains sealed."	Refusal of closure	The mystery stays open; meaning is not handed over
"it will be as true as mine"	Distrust of a single authority	The writer gives up the claim to the one correct version

Where it came from

After 1945. The Holocaust, the atomic bomb and the Cold War made many people doubt that history was a story of progress or that any one system of belief could be trusted.
The media age. Television, advertising and later the internet surrounded people with copies, images and quotations, blurring the line between "high" art and popular culture.
The end of empires. Writers from former colonies challenged the single "official" version of history told by the colonisers, and invented new ways to tell their own.

Key works, in summary

These works are in copyright; they are described here, not quoted.

Waiting for Godot (Samuel Beckett, French 1953, English 1955). Two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, wait by a bare tree for a man called Godot. He never comes; the second act nearly repeats the first. The critic Vivian Mercier famously joked that it is a play in which "nothing happens, twice". It is often grouped with the "Theatre of the Absurd" and sits between late Modernism and Postmodernism.
Slaughterhouse-Five (Kurt Vonnegut, 1969). The hero, Billy Pilgrim, moves back and forth through his own life in no fixed order, from the firebombing of Dresden, which the author himself survived as a prisoner of war, to a planet of aliens. Black humour and a fractured timeline make a war story without heroics.
If on a Winter's Night a Traveller (Italo Calvino, 1979). Addressed to "you", the reader, who keeps starting novels that break off after one chapter. The book is about the act of reading itself.
Midnight's Children (Salman Rushdie, 1981). Saleem Sinai, born at the stroke of midnight on 15 August 1947 as India became independent, has a life magically linked to his country's history, and he admits that his memory is unreliable.
The Famished Road (Ben Okri, 1991). Azaro, an abiku or spirit-child in Yoruba belief, lives between the world of the living and the world of spirits in a poor Nigerian city. Okri uses magical realism to show a nation struggling to be born.

Modernism and Postmodernism compared

Question	Modernism	Postmodernism
Attitude to a broken world	Mourns lost wholeness; seeks new order through art or myth	Accepts the fragments, and often plays with them
Tone	Serious, often anguished	Ironic, playful, black humour
The author	A hidden master craftsman	Visible, even a character; authority is questioned
Use of other texts	Learned allusion to great works	Pastiche, parody, mixing of high and popular culture
Truth	Hard to reach, but worth the search	Many versions; suspicion of any "grand narrative"

Is it useful in Africa? Critics disagree. Some argue that African writers such as Okri and the Zimbabwean Dambudzo Marechera (The House of Hunger, 1978) used postmodern techniques to break the colonial story of Africa and the official stories of new governments. Others argue that oral storytelling, with its interruptions, audience participation and many versions of one tale, was doing some of these things long before Europe named them. Both views can be defended with evidence.

Worked example: spotting the movement

Which movement best fits each description? Give one reason.

A narrator stops to tell the reader she cannot decide how to end the novel and offers three endings. Postmodernism: metafiction and refusal of a single ending.
A long novel follows a doctor's marriage and debts in a provincial town, with an all-knowing narrator. Realism: ordinary life, cause and effect, omniscient narration.
A poem in irregular lines moves through fragments of a ruined city and quotations from old myths, in a mood of despair. Modernism: fragmentation and allusion in a serious, anguished tone.
A poet calls a friend out of the library to hear the birds. Romanticism: nature over book learning.

Tip

Name the technique, then the effect. "The narrator says he named the character an hour ago" is description. "By exposing his own invention, the narrator makes us question how far any story, including official history, is invented" is analysis.

Warning

Don't use "postmodern" to mean simply "recent" or "strange". Name the technique: metafiction, pastiche, magical realism.
Fragmentation alone does not make a text postmodern: Modernist texts are fragmented too. Look at the tone and at the attitude to truth.
When you write about copyrighted novels, use short quotations only, a line or a phrase, and do the rest in your own words.

"What is Postmodernism in Literature? Brief Introduction" by Dr Masood Raja, a university professor of postcolonial literature. Note how he links postmodernism to the distrust of grand narratives, and listen for the writers he mentions.

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Practice

Define metafiction and quote one example of it from the Mukamana passage.
Give two historical reasons why Postmodernism arose after 1945.
What is magical realism? Name a novel that uses it.
Explain the difference between pastiche and parody.
State one difference in tone between Modernism and Postmodernism.
Rewrite the first two sentences of any realist story you know so that they become metafiction.
"Oral storytelling in Africa was postmodern before Postmodernism." Write a paragraph for or against this claim.

Show answersHide answers

Fiction that draws attention to itself as fiction. Example: "I gave her that name an hour ago", or "This story begins on a bus … although it could begin anywhere."
Any two: the horrors of the Second World War and the atomic bomb, which shook faith in progress; the Cold War; the rise of television, advertising and mass media; the end of European empires and the challenge to colonial versions of history.
A style in which impossible events are told as calmly as ordinary ones. Examples: Midnight's Children (Rushdie) or The Famished Road (Okri).
Both imitate other works' styles. Pastiche imitates or mixes styles as a tribute or game; parody imitates in order to mock.
Modernism is usually serious and anguished about the loss of order; Postmodernism is usually ironic and playful about it.
Any version that exposes the writer's choices, e.g. "Once there was a farmer called Habimana. Or so I have decided to call him, because you need a name to hold on to."
For: storytellers addressed the audience, accepted many versions, and invited listeners to respond, as metafiction does. Against: oral storytelling usually works within a shared, trusted tradition, while Postmodernism grows from disbelief in grand narratives; the techniques overlap but the attitudes differ.

Sources and credits

The Mukamana passage, the nested-frames diagram, the summaries, tables, worked example and practice were written by Ganzaa.
Waiting for Godot, Slaughterhouse-Five, If on a Winter's Night a Traveller, Midnight's Children, The Famished Road and The House of Hunger are in copyright; they are summarised in Ganzaa's own words and not quoted, apart from Vivian Mercier's well-known three-word remark.
Video: What is Postmodernism in Literature? Brief Introduction, Dr. Masood Raja, embedded from YouTube.

1A story that knows it is a story

2Analysing the passage

3Where it came from

4Key works, in summary

5Modernism and Postmodernism compared

A story that knows it is a story

Analysing the passage

Where it came from

Key works, in summary

Modernism and Postmodernism compared