George, Rosemary Marangoly, and Helen Scott. "An Interview with Tsitsi Dangarembga." Novel (Spring 1993):309-319. [This interview was conducted at the African Writers Festival, Brown Univ., Nov. 1991]
Excerpt from Introduction: "Written when the author was twenty-five, Nervous Conditions put Dangarembga at the forefront of the younger generation of African writers producing literature in English today....Nervous Conditions highlights that which is often effaced in postcolonial African literature in English--the representation of young African girls and women as worthy subjects of literature....While the critical reception of this novel has focused mainly on the author's feminist agenda, in [this] interview...Dangarembga stresses
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She notes that she and her brother began to speak English there "as a matter of course and forgot most of the Shona that we had learnt" (196). When they returned to Zimbabwe, when she was six, she learned Shona again and later attended mission school in Mutare and then a private American convent school. Dangarembga notes that she didn’t learn "much about anything indigenous at all" in these schools (190). She cites one problem that Zimbabwean people of her generation—and Nyasha’s—have is "that we really don’t have a tangible history that we can relate to" (191); "that was the [colonized] system we were living under. Even the history was written in such a way that a child who did not want to accept that had to reject it and have nothing"—which, she states, is Nyasha’s problem (198). Dangarembga also calls her first language English—the language used all through her education—and Shona her second language: "Sometimes I worry about Shona: how long it’s going to survive….There are very few people who can speak good Shona and even fewer who can write it. Maybe we’ve caught it just in time with the [Zimbabwean] Government’s policies of traditional culture and so forth, so maybe it’s not as sad as it seems" (196). Later on when Dangarembga was working in a publishing house, Zimbabwean historians were beginning to "rewrite …show more content…
of Zimbabwe, then enrolled in a drama group, found an outlet for her creative leanings, and wrote 3 plays, including She No Longer Weeps (1987). Dangarembga notes that "There were simply no plays with roles for black women, or at least we didn’t have access to them at the time. The writers in Zimbabwe were basically men at the time. And so I really didn’t see that the situation would be remedied unless some woman sat down and wrote something, so that’s what I did!" (196). Nervous Conditions was Dangarembga’s first novel, written in 1985 and published in 1988. Dangarembga had some trouble getting her novel accepted for publication until she took it to a women’s publishing house [Doris "Lessing explains how Nervous Conditions was rejected by four Zimbabwe publishers, and was not published within the country until Women's Press in London first published it. According to Lessing, it was "criticized by male critics as being 'negative,' and presenting an unfair picture of the lives of black women" (423; cited in Saliba n.
As I researched the novel I also learned that the author, Shenaaz Nanji, became a refugee after the expulsion of Indians of Uganda. This knowledge about the author’s personal experience was a defining factor in how I related to the novel and the impact it had on me. Knowing that she went through the same thing that Sabine experienced in the novel made the story so much more than just a
The novel immediately projects the fear and misunderstanding felt by the people of Bambara due to the unexpected early changes that are taking place in Africa. “A white man...There’s a white man on the bank of the Joliba” is exclaimed by Dousika’s pregnant wife Sira (Conde 5). The family is instantly struck with a curious mind but also one that is uneasy. The sight of this white man causes great despair already for the man of the house Dousika: “White men come and live in Segu among the Bambara? It seemed impossible, whether they were friends or enemies!”(Conde 10). The unexpected appearance of this white ...
For the purpose of this chapter, these words by Stephen Vincent Benet in his foreword to Margaret Walker’s first volume of poetry, For My People (1942) are really important. They give an idea about the richness of the literary heritage from which Walker started to write and to which she later added. This chapter is up to explore those “anonymous voices” in Walker’s poetry, the cultural and literary heritages that influenced her writings. Margaret Walker’s cultural heritage, like her biological inheritance, extends back to her ancestors in Africa and the Caribbean. It is quite genetic, something she got by birth; which is quite there just by being African American. Echoes of ancient myths, lost history, mixed bloods, and complex identities are brought about along with the skin colour and the racial origins.
Leonard, K. D. (2009). African American women poets and the power of the word. The Cambridge Companion to African American Women's Literature, 168-187.
Storytelling has a special importance in culture throughout the African continent; Anansi the spider in Ghana, is one great example of an African fable that teaches children important lessons including respect for elders, the importance of wisdom, and the importance of culture. These stories have been retained and perpetuated by oral tradition, despite the western emphasis on written records; African tribes have preserved history and culture well thorough oral historians. The translator, D.T. Niane, explains the validity of oral history well by stating that written text can contain inaccuracies as well (xv). The importance of the oral aspect of djelis method relays the information in a personal manner, as Djeli Mamoudou Kouyate states, “writing lacks the warmth of the human voice,” therefore by creating a written text of an oral story it “does violence” to it (xvi). I was raised in an African community, here in DC and was lucky enough to attend Djeli performances by family friend, Djimo Kouyate, and later his son Amadou. Although I do not speak Manding, Djeli Djimo Koyate, performed the music in such a way that I was able to relate and...
Nnaemeka, Obioma. “Nego‐Feminism: Theorizing, Practicing, and Pruning Africa’s Way.” Signs, Vol. 29, No. 2, Winter 2004, 357-385. Online.
(7) Anthony Kwame Appiah, In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosphy of Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992)
Achebe, Chinua. “An Image of Africa.” EXPLORING Novels. Online Detroit: Gale, 2003. Student Resource Center – Gold. Gale. Ascension Academy. 9 June 2008.
This is a gripping novel about the problem of European colonialism in Africa. The story relates the cultural collision that occurs when Christian English missionaries arrive among the Ibos of Nigeria, bringing along their European ways of life and religion.
Bailey, Carol. "Performance and the Gendered Body in Jamaica Kincaid's "girl" and Oonya Kempadoo's Buxton Spice." Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism. 10.2 (2011): 106-123. Print.
... Cambridge Encyclopedia of Africa. Ed. Roland Oliver. 1. New York: Trewin Copplestone Books Limited, 1984. Print.
Polsgrove, Carol. Ending British Rule in Africa: Writers in a Common Cause. Manchester University Press, 2009.
The significance of Nyasha in "Nervous Conditions" involves her apparent rebellious nature and her reluctance to accept the norm. Her unwillingness to conform to the ideals of a sexist society perpetuates her into a constant struggle against the patriarchal system. She may have lost the fight in the end but it's not to no avail because her example goes on to encourage Tambu to carry on in her wake. Nyasha is important because she is a shinning example of the effects of colonialism on the African population, she influences Tambu's own rebellious nature, and she's one of the few that rebel against the patriarchal system.
My favourite text is a play titled “Anowa” by Ama Ataa Aidoo which was published in year 1969. This book was first given to me by my father on my twelfth birthday. Although I was disappointed initially because I was expecting something “girly” on my birthday, I liked it when I read it because of the moral lessons it portrayed and the language used in the play. However, I got a deeper understanding of the test after I did a post-colonial and a feminist analysis on the text. In my post-colonial analysis, I saw that in a sense Anowa represents the beauty of the formal African society which was destroyed as a result of colonialism. A feminist analysis on the other hand shows that Anowa is a woman who is struggling against the 1870’s African feminist identity (the identity of weakness).
...econd African Writers Conference, Stockholm, 1986. Ed. Kirsten Holst Petersen. Upsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1998. 173-202.