Francophone African Women Writers. Destroying the Emptiness of Silence (review)

1996 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-124
Author(s):  
Bernadette Cailler
Keyword(s):  
Women Writers ◽  
African Women ◽  
African Women Writers

Kenya Colony and the Kenya Novel: The East African Heritage of “A Very Fine Negress” in A Room of One’s Own

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeanne Dubino
Keyword(s):  
Women Writers ◽  
Black Women ◽  
Virginia Woolf ◽  
African Women ◽  
East African ◽  
African Heritage ◽  
The People ◽  
African Women Writers ◽  
White Settlers ◽  
Isak Dinesen

‘It is one of the great advantages of being a woman that one can pass even a very fine negress without wishing to make an Englishwoman of her.’ Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own At the time Virginia Woolf’s narrator made this observation in the late 1920s, a number of her British and other European contemporary women writers were in fact passing by and indeed living among black women in one of Great Britain’s colonies, Kenya. Isak Dinesen (1885-1962) was among the most famous, and her memoir Out of Africa (1937), commemorates her years on a Kenyan plantation (1914-1931). Along with the canonical Danish Dinesen were British women whose work has been long forgotten, including Nora K. Strange (1884-1974) and Florence Riddell (1885-1960), both of whom wrote what is called the “Kenya Novel.” The Kenya Novel is a subgenre of romantic fiction set in the white highlands of Britain’s Crown Colony Kenya. The titles alone—e.g., Kenya Calling (1928) and Courtship in Kenya (1932) by Strange, and Kismet in Kenya (1927) and Castles in Kenya (1929) by Riddell—give a flavor of their content. Because these novels were popular in Britain, it is very likely that Woolf knew about them, but she does not refer to them in her diaries, letters, or published writing. Even so, it would be worth testing this famous comment by a Room’s narrator about (white) women’s lack of propensity to recreate others in her own image, or more specifically, to dominate the colonial other. How do Woolf’s white contemporaries, living in Kenya, represent black women? Given that Strange and Riddell were part of the settler class, we can expect that their views reflect dominant colonial ideology. The formulaic nature of the Kenya Novel, and its focus on the lives of white settlers, also mean that the portrayal of the lives of the people whose lands were brutally expropriated would hardly be treated with respect or as little more than backdrops. Yet it is important to understand these other global contexts in which Woolf is working and the role that some of her contemporary women writers played in the shaping of them. This paper concludes with an overview of the separate legacies of Woolf and her fellow Anglo-African women writers up to the present day.

scholarly journals Technique of Exploring Women’s Choice in Select Novels of El Sadaawi, Ba, Alkali and Adichie

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 42
Author(s):  
Angela Ngozi Dick
Keyword(s):  
Women Writers ◽  
Gender Studies ◽  
African Women ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
African Society ◽  
Mariama Ba ◽  
Literary Art ◽  
African Women Writers ◽  
Higher Institutions ◽  
So Long A Letter

Women writers in Africa have enjoyed wider audience especially in higher institutions where the curriculum includes African Women Writers, Gender Studies and other related courses. African women writers may focus on a variety of subject matters but what is common to their literary art is that they concentrate on the experience of women. This article focuses on how the authors use their literary art to portray women’s experiences in their social melieu.  Nawal El Sadaawi, Mariama Ba, Zaynab Alkali and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie are women writers from Africa. The first three women are older and from Moslem background. Adichie is younger and from a Christian background. The choice made of the novels of these women is due to the recurrent problem of being a woman everywhere. In contemporary times women are still treated differently just because they are women. However, it has been observed that there is nothing intrinsic in women that depict them as the bad or inferior species of human beings. This article focuses on the commonality of style used by the select African novelists in couching the predicament of women in the African society. The novels chosen in this research are El Sadaawi’s  Woman at Point Zero and God Dies by the Nile; Ba’s So Long a Letter and Scarlet Song; Alkali’s The Stillborn and The Virtuous Woman and  Adichie’s Americanah.

scholarly journals “The Joys of Motherhood” of an African Woman: A Mirage

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 1167-1169
Author(s):  
Siva R, Et. al.
Keyword(s):  
Women Writers ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Western Country ◽  
African Women ◽  
African Woman ◽  
Buchi Emecheta ◽  
African Context ◽  
Male Dominated ◽  
African Women Writers ◽  
Strong Woman

Quest for identity is one phenomenon of postcolonialism that led way for the emergence of Women writers portraying the indigenous women of their society who were denied the authorial voice in the male-dominated society. Africa African woman literature has always been discussed elaborately not only among ‘White’ but also among fellow African women writers and critics across the globe. Emecheta was one such writer whose work has been criticized for writing after settled in the western country, UK (the colonizer). The readers from third world nations may agree with Emecheta’s call for the necessity to redefine Women’s identity under the African identity. Buchi Emecheta to that reverence has always through her strong woman characters never failed to express the state of the African women and their limitations in social life. Emecheta has always recorded her protagonists' struggle for equality in a male-dominated society. Through the study of her novel The Joys of Motherhood, an attempt is made to explore her perception of Motherhood and explain how she portrays it to the African context where traditions and communal ties are deeply rooted in the Nigerian Ibo society.  

A Preliminary Checklist of East African Women Writers

Matatu ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 15-16 (1) ◽  
pp. 201-244
Author(s):  
CHRISTINE MATZKE
Keyword(s):  
Women Writers ◽  
African Women ◽  
East African ◽  
African Women Writers

scholarly journals The portrayal of single women characters in selected African literary texts

Literator ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Kwatsha
Keyword(s):  
Women Writers ◽  
Women Characters ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Single Women ◽  
African Women ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Women Authors ◽  
The Future ◽  
African Women Writers

In this article, the portrayal of single women characters in works by a number of African women authors is critically reflected upon. These women are portrayed as strong, resistant, independent and realistic characters, who boldly resist male paternalism and dominance in order to look to the future with courage. Single women characters are presented as independent individuals rather than as kinship appendages. They are portrayed as architects of their own potential happiness rather than as passive receivers of the dictates of patriarchy. The article will also show that women characters account for their own values, rather than subserviently surrender to stereotypical conventions. African women writers portray single women characters as having the professional and economic means to look after themselves. This portrayal of women characters is part of a debate that translates itself to contemporary everyday philosophical social theory.

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