African Women Writing Resistance

An Anthology of Contemporary Voices

Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez, Pauline Dongala, Omotayo Jolaosho, Anne Serafin, Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez, Pauline Dongala, Omotayo Jolaosho, Anne Serafin

• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9780299236632
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Collections
• Index: Literature

African Women Writing Resistance is the first transnational anthology to focus on women's strategies of resistance to the challenges they face in Africa today. The anthology brings together personal narratives, testimony, interviews, short stories, poetry, performance scripts, folktales, and lyrics. Thematically organized, it presents women's writing on such issues as intertribal and interethnic conflicts, the degradation of the environment, polygamy, domestic abuse, the controversial traditional practice of female genital cutting, Sharia law, intergenerational tensions, and emigration and exile.
Contributors include internationally recognized authors and activists such as Wangari Maathai and Nawal El Saadawi, as well as a host of vibrant new voices from all over the African continent and from the African diaspora. Interdisciplinary in scope, this collection provides an excellent introduction to contemporary African women's literature and highlights social issues that are particular to Africa but are also of worldwide concern. It is an essential reference for students of African studies, world literature, anthropology, cultural studies, postcolonial studies, and women's studies. A Choice Outstanding Academic BookOutstanding Book, selected by the Public Library AssociationBest Books for High Schools, Best Books for Special Interests, and Best Books for Professional Use, selected by the American Association of School Libraries

Table of contents

• Contents
• Preface: Roots of the Collection
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword: A Song in Seven Stanzas for Our Granddaughters
• African Women Writing Resistance: An Introduction
• Part 1. Engaging with Tradition
• Part 2. Speaking Out: Young Women on Sexuality
• Part 3. Challenging the Institution of Marriage
• Part 4. Focusing on Survival:Women’s Health Issues
• Part 5. Taking a Stand: Women as Activists against War, Environmental Degradation, and Social Conflict
• Part 6. Writing from a Different Place: Perspectives on Exile and Diaspora
• Part 7. Standing at the Edge of Time: African Women’s Visions of the Past, Present, and Future
• Suggestions for Further Reading
• Contributors