Synopses & Reviews
The first of four volumes in the Women Writing Africa Project, this landmark collection presents two centuries of texts by African women and reveals a powerful cultural legacy. Ranging from communal songs and folk tales to letters, diaries, poems, -fiction, -interviews, court records, and other documents, the texts offer a vivid picture of African women’s lives. Their work and families, their experiences of the cruelty of colonialism and war, and their struggles for civil rights are described in voices young and old, of diverse racial and ethnic identities. The volume includes Urieta Kazahendike, an early convert to Christianity, and Queen Regent Labotsibeni of Swaziland, as well as writers and activists such as Bessie Head, Doris Lessing, Nadine Gordimer, Sindiwe Magona, and -Winnie Mandela.
Review
"(A) rich resource for scholars and general readers alike."- Library Journal
Synopsis
The product of a decade of research, this landmark collection is the first of four volumes in the
Women Writing Africa Project, which seeks to document and map the extraordinary and diverse landscape of African women's oral and written literatures. Presenting voices rarely heard outside Africa, some recorded as early as the mid-nineteenth century, as well as rediscovered gems by such well-known authors as Bessie Head and Doris Lessing, this volume reveals a living cultural legacy that will revolutionize the understanding of African women's literary and cultural production.
Ranging from communal songs and folktales to letters, diaries, political petitions, court records, poems, essays, and fiction, these texts provide a vivid--and heretofore largely invisible--picture of African women's lives. Their work and families, their experience of the cruelty of colonialism and war, and their struggles for civil rights are described in voices from twenty original languages and six countries in the region: Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe. Together the texts demonstrate women's critical role in cultural continuity and resistance to oppression.
Each text is accompanied by a scholarly headnote that provides detailed historical background. An introduction by the editors sets the broader historical stage and explores the many issues involved in collecting and combining orature and literature from diverse cultures in one volume. Unprecedented in its scope and achievement, this volume will be an essential resource for anyone interested in women's history, culture, and literature in Africa, and worldwide.
Synopsis
Essential...this distinctive series presents 120 southern African texts that are rich, evocative. -- Library Journal
About the Author
Margaret Daymond is professor and university fellow at the University of Natal, Durban. She has edited several volumes of fiction by Bessie Head, Lauretta Ngcombo, and Frances Calenso, as well as the volume called African Feminisms: Writing, Theory, and Criticism. She is an editor of the journal Current Writing. Leloba Molema is senior lecturer in English at the University of Botswana; her current research focuses on anti-apartheid literature in Afrikaans.Cheidza Musengezi is the director of Zimbabwe Women Writers and is a teacher, writer, and editor.Margie Orford is an independent scholar and the editor of Coming on Strong, an anthology of writing by Namibian women.Nobantu Rasebotsa is senior lecturer in English at the University of Botswana; her research includes work on gender issues and HIV/AIDS in African literature.