This book explores the different ways women have been liberating themselves from the shackles of patriarchy and cultural laws that inhibit their independence and freedom to show that women are also contributing meaningfully to society. Women have worked to attain freedom through speaking out, writing memoirs, fiction, plays, poetry, and essays. The creative experiences of women are captured in this book, thus fulfilling the book's aim to give women voices to air their views and show that they are effectual members of society. The book examines the roles played by patriarchy, religion, and socioeconomic and political systems that keep women to the background. It also examines the issue of education, otherhood, marginalization, cultural imposition, and the diverse positions of women in local and international affairs. The book testifies that women's literature, and the stories of women all over the world, can be appreciated and viewed from different perspectives because of the diverse cultural environment in which women find themselves. This confirms that the issue of marginalization, suppression, and oppression of women are on-going problems in different societies around the world.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword. Nawal El Saadawi Introduction. Blessing Diala-Ogamba and Elaine Sykes Section I. Exploitation, Exclusion, and Quest for Selfhood Chapter 1. Sexual and Gender Based Violence in African Women's Writings: A Textual Study of Literary Works by Female African Writers Juliana Daniels Chapter 2. Dangarembga'sTambudzaiSigauke: The Education of an African Girl Mary Jane Androne Chapter 3. The Politics of Exclusion and the Response of El Saadawi's Women Iniobong Uko Section II. Gender, Patriarchy, and Marginalization Chapter 4. Breaking the Silence, Writing the Body Elena Garces de Eder Chapter 5. On Their Own Terms: Renegotiating Patriarchal Laws According to Farah's Ebla and El Saadawi's Firdaus Blessing Diala-Ogamba Chapter 6. Women at Point Zero: Oedipal Determinationin Adichie'sPurple Hibiscus, Aidoo's Changes and Naylor's The Women at Brewster Place Solomon Azumurana Section III. Masculinity and Gender Identity Chapter 7. Faces of Cleopatra Gabriela Vlahovici-Jones Chapter 8. Decadent Space: Women, Language and Crime in Chinua Achebe's A Man of the People Chioma Opara Chapter 9. Two Views on Female Characters in Eje Meji, A Yoruba Movie Bayo Omolola Section IV. Motherhood and Love Chapter 10. Restaging Motherhood in African Literature: A Study of Selected Texts Irene Salami-Agunloye Chapter 11. Grass Splitting Stone: Suffering and the Return to Love Sidney Krome Chapter 12. A Call for Change: Liberation as Motif in Alice Childress's A Hero Ain't Nothing but a Sandwich Romanus Muoneke Contributors Index
