Yoruba Diaspora Literature in English: Tropes of Language Loss, Identity, and Cultural Mediation

The literary production of Yoruba diaspora writers working in English constitutes a significant and undertheorised corpus of texts in which language loss, cultural translation, and diasporic identity construction are simultaneously enacted and reflected upon at the level of narrative form. This dissertation analyses tropes of language loss, identity negotiation, and cultural mediation in contemporary Yoruba diaspora literature written in English, examining texts by authors from Nigeria, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Brazil published between 2010 and 2024. Using comparative literary analysis informed by diaspora theory, post-colonial literary criticism, and Yoruba cultural aesthetics, the study examines how authors deploy English as a medium for narrating Yoruba experience, what linguistic and cultural strategies are used to inscribe Yoruba presence within English-dominant texts, and how these texts theorise their own cultural and linguistic mediation. The theoretical framework integrates diaspora theory by Brah and Hall, post-colonial literary theory by Spivak and Bhabha, and Yoruba-specific cultural aesthetics. Existing scholarship on diaspora literature has engaged with Yoruba-heritage authors, including Teju Cole and Maaza Mengiste comparators, without developing a dedicated analytical framework for Yoruba diaspora literary production as a distinct corpus. This dissertation makes an original contribution by establishing Yoruba diaspora literature in English as a coherent literary field with distinctive formal and thematic characteristics. Findings will demonstrate that code-switching, orality inscription, and cultural translation constitute the three dominant literary tropes of Yoruba diaspora textuality. Keywords: Yoruba diaspora literature, language loss, cultural mediation, post-colonial criticism, diasporic identity.