143069 VO African Women’s Writing and Feminism in the 20th Century (2026W)

This is not the reading list. It is only the content of the lectures. You can choose what you want to read.

PRIMARY LITERATURE:

NOVELS AND DRAMA:
Flora Nwapa, Efuru (1966) and One is Enough (1981)
Charity Waciuma, Daughter of Mumbi (1969)
Muthoni Likimani, They Shall Be Chastised (1974), Passbook no. F47927 (1985)
Grace Ogot, Land without Thunder and other stories (1968)
Buchi Emecheta, Second-Class Citizen (1974), The Joys of Motherhood (1979)
Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions (1988)
Rebeka Njau, The Scar (1961), Ripples in the Pool (1978)
Yvonne Vera, Butterfly Burning (1998), Without a Name (1994), Under the Tongue (1996)
Ama Ata Aidoo, No Sweetness Here (1970), Our Sister Killjoy (1977), Changes (1991)
Miriam Tlali, Muriel at Metropolitan (1975)
Lauretta Ngcobo, The Cross of Gold (1981), And They Didn’t Die (1990)

ESSAYS AND THEORY
Catherine Acholonu, Motherism: The Afrocentric Alternative to Feminism (1995)
Ama Ata Aidoo, “To Be an African Woman Writer” (1988), in Olaniyan and Quayson (2007)
Ama Ata Aidoo, “The African Woman Today”, Dissent, Summer 1992, 319-325
Ama Ata Aidoo, “Unwelcome Pals and Decorative Slaves” (1981)
Buchi Emecheta, “Feminism with a small f”, In Criticism and Ideology: Second African Writers’ Conference, Stockholm, 1986, ed. Kirsten Holst-Petersen. Uppsala 1988, pp. 173–181.
Flora Nwapa, “Women and Creative Writing in Africa” (1992)
Molara Ogundipe-Leslie, Re-Creating Ourselves: African Women and Critical Transformations (1994)
Lauretta Ngcobo, “African Motherhood: Myth and Reality” (1988), in Olaniyan and Quayson (2007)
Lauretta Ngcobo, “The African Woman Writer” and “My Life and My Writing” in A Double Colonization, ed. Kirsten Holst Petersen and Anna Rutherford (1986)
Mary E. Modupe Kolawole, Womanism and African Consciousness (1997)
Yvonne Vera, “Writing Near the Bone” (1997), in Olaniyan and Quayson (2007)

SECONDARY LITERATURE
Susan Andrade, The Nation Writ Small: African Fictions and Feminism, 1958-1988 (2011)
Susan Arndt, The Dynamics of African Feminism: Defining and Classifying African-Feminist Literatures (2002)
Susan Arndt, “Who is Afraid of Feminism? Critical Perspectives on Feminism in Africa and African Feminism” (2000)
Joyce Chadya, “Mother Politics: Anti-colonial Nationalism and the Woman Question in Africa.” Journal of Women’s History 15.3 (2003)
Elisabeth Bekers, Rising Anthills: African and African-American Writing on Female Genital Excision (2010)
Elleke Boehmer, Stories of Women: Gender and Narrative in the Postcolonial Nation (2005)
Gikandi, Simon and Abiola Irele, eds. The Cambridge History of African and Caribbean Literature (2004)
Innes, C. L. , Introduction to Postcolonial Literatures in English. Cambridge UP, 2007.
Juliana M. Nfah-Abbenyi, Gender in African Women's Writing: Identity, Sexuality, and Difference (1997)
Gwendolyn Mikell, ed., African Feminism: The Politics of Survival in Sub-Saharan Africa (1997)
Obioma Nnaemeka, ed. The Politics of (M)Othering : Womanhood, Identity and Resistance in African Literature (1997)
Obioma Nnaemeka, ed., Sisterhood, Feminisms and Power: from Africa to the Diaspora (1998)
Obioma Nnaemeka, “Nego‐Feminism: Theorizing, Practicing, and Pruning Africa’s Way,” Signs 29.2 (2004), 357-385
Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi, “Womanism: The Dynamics of the Contemporary Black Female Novel in English”, Signs, 11.1 (1985), 63-80.
Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi, Africa Wo/Man Palawa: The Nigerian Novel by Women (1996)
Kirsten Holst Petersen, “First Things First: Problems of a Feminist Approach to African Literature” Kunapipi 6.3 (1984)
Kirsten Holst-Petersen and Anna Rutherford, eds., A Double Colonization: Colonial and Post-Colonial Women's Writing (1986)
Florence Stratton, Contemporary African Literature and the Politics of Gender (1994)