African Women Writing Resistance: An Anthology of Contemporary Voices by Jennifer Browdy


African Women Writing Resistance: An Anthology of Contemporary Voices
Title : African Women Writing Resistance: An Anthology of Contemporary Voices
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 0299236641
ISBN-10 : 9780299236649
Language : English
Format Type : Paperback
Number of Pages : 360
Publication : First published January 1, 2010

African Women Writing Resistance is the first transnational anthology to focus on women’s strategies of resistance to the challenges they face in Africa today.  The anthology brings together personal narratives, testimony, interviews, short stories, poetry, performance scripts, folktales, and lyrics. Thematically organized, it presents women’s writing on such issues as intertribal and interethnic conflicts, the degradation of the environment, polygamy, domestic abuse, the controversial traditional practice of female genital cutting, Sharia law, intergenerational tensions, and emigration and exile.
    Contributors include internationally recognized authors and activists such as Wangari Maathai and Nawal El Saadawi, as well as a host of vibrant new voices from all over the African continent and from the African diaspora. Interdisciplinary in scope, this collection provides an excellent introduction to contemporary African women’s literature and highlights social issues that are particular to Africa but are also of worldwide concern.  It is an essential reference for students of African studies, world literature, anthropology, cultural studies, postcolonial studies, and women’s studies.  A Choice Outstanding Academic Book

Outstanding Book, selected by the Public Library Association

Best Books for High Schools, Best Books for Special Interests, and Best Books for Professional Use, selected by the American Association of School Libraries

African Women Writing Resistance: An Anthology of Contemporary Voices Reviews

  • Parlei

    A fascinating anthology that highlights the diversity of women's voices throughout Africa. Essays, short stories, excerpts, personal testimonies... the strength of this collection lies in how women take up similar struggles with very different approaches. My only disappointment is that I would like to have more materials in the novel to bring the reader closer to some of these experiences. Images of news clippings, excerpts side by side with the writings in the original language, photos, etc. this would help the reader acknowledge what the modern American media ignores.

  • Marcy

    I am so proud of an American teacher I met in Ghana, Anne Serafin, for being one of the authors of African Women Writing Resistance, Contemporary Voices. African women are using writing as their common voices to promote education, dignity, and a better future for not only African women, but women all over the world. The introduction, alone, had me hooked! Go Anne!

    Now that I've read the stories and the poems, I ache for the women in this anthology. I have not read such powerful writing in a very long time. All of the indignities you can imagine are told by women who have suffered emotionally and physically by their husbands, fathers, and by inhumane governments. I often wonder why I was lucky enough to be born "free" to choose my own life, my own husband, able to receive an education, travel, and worship as I please. When you read this book, freedom takes on a new meaning. There are many outstanding African authors of books that I have read and admired. I have been moved by all of their writing. This anthology, however, brings so many voices to the forefront at one sitting. I am overwhelmed, yet graced, to be able to read and truly comprehend the plight of African women.

  • Mills College Library

    809.8896 A2586 2010