Discursive Slippage, Church Mafia, and the Editorial Dilemma of “An Untold African Narrative”

Abstract

Literature is life converted into symbols which shape up into the various genres. The complexities
of the symbols which add up to making human language effective for communicational and creative

and other purposes are a match for the extraordinary intricacies of human life experiences.
Experimentation by writers with content and form in literature guarantees a violation of the pristine
sanctity of the separation of the genres of literature. There seems to be no longer a clear-cut demarcation

between fact and fiction, between the temporal and the spiritual, between the tangible and the
intangible; both language and literature seem caught in a surreal time warp that strains credibility
in the experiences of living and reading. A recent book by MS Ramabulana titled Church Mafia:
Captured by secret powers – an untold African narrative presents an opportunity to examine a few
presumptions in the genre of writing referred to as life story which is about a type of experience that
is commonly associated with spirituality and the intangible presenting itself as tangible and credible.
The book is in the class of extended testimony in prose. It raises some interesting posers which have
literary and spiritual implication, and are the subject of speculation in this essay.