Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- EDITORIAL ARTICLE
- ARTICLES
- Gender Politics, Home & Nation in Zulu Sofola's King Emene:
- The Militant Writer in Sembène's Early Fiction:
- Psychological Violence in Bessie Head's
- Constructing the Destructive City:
- History, Progress & Prospects inthe Development of African Literature:
- Dispelling the Myth of the ‘Silent Woman’:
- Interrogating Dichotomies, Reconstructing Emancipation:
- Es'kia Mphahlele's Enduring Truth in Down Second Avenue
- A Tribute to Cyprian O.D. Ekwensi (26 September 1921–4 November 2007): The Writer, the Man & His Era
- REVIEWS
Interrogating Dichotomies, Reconstructing Emancipation:
Bessie Head's Vision on Gender Issues
from ARTICLES
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 April 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- EDITORIAL ARTICLE
- ARTICLES
- Gender Politics, Home & Nation in Zulu Sofola's King Emene:
- The Militant Writer in Sembène's Early Fiction:
- Psychological Violence in Bessie Head's
- Constructing the Destructive City:
- History, Progress & Prospects inthe Development of African Literature:
- Dispelling the Myth of the ‘Silent Woman’:
- Interrogating Dichotomies, Reconstructing Emancipation:
- Es'kia Mphahlele's Enduring Truth in Down Second Avenue
- A Tribute to Cyprian O.D. Ekwensi (26 September 1921–4 November 2007): The Writer, the Man & His Era
- REVIEWS
Summary
While I stand committed to pro-women politics, I resist the label feminism… The definitions, the terminology, the assumptions even the issues, the forms of struggle and institutions are exported from West to East, and often we are expected to be the echo of what are assumed to be more advanced women's movements in the West. (Madhu Kishwar ‘A Horror of Isms’ 1970)
African literary texts are complex; it is our selective and one-dimensional readings that are superficial. Instead of taking into account the complex, and sometimes conflictive, issues that are apparent in the texts, some feminist critics choose to engage in questionable selectivity. (Obioma Nnaemeka ‘Insider/Outsider: Decoding Context, Encoding Knowledge’ 1995)
All this does not mean that I do not have ideology. I do, although it does not have a name – I would like to see a world in which the means for a dignified life are available to all human beings equally. (Madhu Kishwar, ibid.)
The compilers of Bessie Head: A Bibliography note that literary critics have summed up Head's authorial vision as ‘concern for women’ and ‘an inspiration to women writers of Africa’ (Mackenzie and Woeber 1992: 1).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Reflections and Retrospectives in African Literature Today , pp. 122 - 137Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2012