Linguistic Counterpoint in Gbenga Agbenugba's Another Lonely Londoner

This essay examines Gbenga Agbenugba’s Another Lonely Londoner
(1991), a rarely discussed novel recounting the experiences of a young
Nigerian man living in London. The narrative is written in an experimental
style mixing English with Nigerian Pidgin, and including elements
of Nigerian English, Black British English, Cockney, and Yoruba.
By way of introduction, Agbenugba’s work is briefly discussed in
relation to the novel that inspired it, Sam Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners
(1956). An analysis is then undertaken of the interaction between
English and Nigerian Pidgin in Another Lonely Londoner, both in dialogue
and in narrative passages, with a view to assessing the impact of
the combined use of these languages on possible literary interpretations
of the novel. The other codes, varieties, and linguistic influences revealed
in the book also receive systematic treatment, and it gradually appears
that all these elements combine to produce a complex polyphonic
work mirroring the main character’s multifarious identity.