الفهرس 
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Abstract
In West Africa, expressions and elements of folklore such as myths, legends, proverbs, music, songs, rituals and ceremonies provide a medium for representing cultural reality and human experience. The scope of this thesis examines how folklore is integrated as a resistance to the European colonization in the postcolonial literature of West Africa. This thesis focuses on Ben Okri‘s trilogy: The Famished Road (1991), Songs of Enchantment (1993), and Infinite Riches (1998) to show how folklore is used to comment on different times and changing situations in Nigeria. It explores how Okri uses different elements of folklore to present Nigeria‘s history, investigate socio-political issues and offer solution to the country‘s rampant problems. It also shows that the postcolonial writers have a role to play in the preservation of the indigenous traditions and the cultural identities in Nigeria. The thesis concludes by emphasizing the cultural value of folklore in postcolonial narratives. The thesis deduces that Okri‘s trilogy is based on West African social background in which people are struggling to be free from corruption and oppression. The trilogy confirms the importance of folklore as a prominent means of transmitting the stories of ancestors, reflecting traditional knowledge and tracing indigenous history of mankind.
Keywords: Folklore, West Africa, indigenous traditions, European colonization, postcolonial literature.