Paper-2 Module-30 Women Voices from Africa

Paper-2 Module-30 Women Voices from Africa. I. (A) Personal Details Role Name Affiliation Principal Investigator Prof.SumitaParmar Allahabad University Paper Coordinator Prof. SumitaParmar Allahabad University Content Writer/Author (CW) Dr. Shamenaz Bano Associate Professor, Dept of English Ewing Christian College, Allahabad. Content Reviewer (CR) Prof. SumitaParmar Allahabad University Language Editor (LE) Prof. SumitaParmar Allahabad University (B) Description of Module Items Description of Module Subject Name Women’s Studies Paper Name Women and Literature Module Name/ Title Women Voices from Africa. Module ID Paper-2 Module-30 Pre-requisites The learner is expected to be aware of the socio- political condition of the African countries Objectives The objective of the unit is to throw highlight on some progressive women writers of Africa who by their will have establish their name globally. Keywords Progressive Women writers, apartheid, racism, socio-moral and political themes, personal narrative. Women Voices from Africa Introduction Nadine Gordimer, Mariama Ba &Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Colonization brought both racism and exploitation to the African people. This caused prolonged suffering to them for long periods. But with the decline of imperialism in the decades of the 1950s and 1960s the gradual liberation of one country after another began to take place.Native populations began to assert themselves and do well in a variety of fields such as academics, sports, media, and cinema. Literature, which had so far been a field dominated mainly by white writers, saw the emergence of African Black writers, both men and women,who wrote about their lives, experiences, culture, history and the various myths associated with them. Many gained international recognition. Since Africa is a continent comprising of many countries, it is especially rich in its variety of customs, traditions and languages. This richness is reflected in the diversity of forms, styles, genres of literature and varied languages that the writers use. Oral literature constitutes an important part of the corpus. In his book, Understanding Contemporary Africa, George Joseph says, “ Traditionally, Africans do not radically separate art from teaching. Rather than write or sing for beauty in itself, African writers, taking their cue from oral literature,use beauty to help communicate important truths and information to society. Indeed, an object is considered beautiful because of the truths it reveals and the communities it helps to build. Several highly acclaimed writers have emerged from this continent, many of them winners of the Nobel Prize. Wole Soyinka (Nigeria) became the first post-independence African writer to win the Nobel Prize for literature in 1986. His works like, The Interpreters and Seasons of Anatomy are widely read around the world. Algerian born Albert Camus received the award in 1957. Chinua Achebe from Nigeria, author of Arrow of God, No Longer At Ease, Things Fall Apart, A Man of the People and Anthills of the Savanaah is also a winner of the Nobel Prize as is J. M. Coetze from South Africa author of Disgrace and Nadine Gordimer who got it in 1991. Some other well-known writers of African literature are Nuruddin Faran from Somalia, author of From a Crooked Rib, Maps and Sweet and Sour Milk and Naquib Mahfouz, also a recipient of the prize and author of The Beginning and the End, Cairo Trilogy, Children of Gebelawi and Midaq Alley There are certain themes which recur in the work of these writers.Ali A. Mazruihas categorized them and calls them the seven conflicts. They are the clash: between African’s past and present, between tradition and modernity, between indigenous and foreign, between individualism and community, between socialism and capitalism, between development and self-reliance and between Africanity and humanity. Many writers have written on some other themes concerning social problems such as corruption, the economic disparities in the countries that have newly liberated and also on the upliftment of women, their rights and roles in the family and society. African writers have written in their indigenous languages as well as other languages of the world viz English, French, German, Russians, Portuguese, Arabic, etc.They have published extensively not only in the African continent but also in Europe, America, Asia and Australia. Although there are many big names in the world of African women’s writing, three eminent writers- Nadine Gordimer from South Africa, Mariama Ba from Senegal and &Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie from Nigeria have been focused on in this module. They write about issues that are central to the lives of women, locating their works in broader social, cultural and political contexts. Framed in the individual lives, questions of racism, autonomy and freedom resonate. The novels raise questions, interrogate and analyze. They are marked by fine craftsmanship and eloquent narrative expertise and are an indication of the richness of the corpus of writing done and being done by women from Africa today Nadine Gordimer Nadine Gordimer was born on 20th November 1923 in South Africa and lived till the ripe age of ninety one. She was a writer who was honoured with the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991. Alfred Nobel, who admired her greatly, referred to her as a woman “who through her magnificent epic writing hasbeen of very great benefit to humanity.” Intrepid in her choice of themes, she dealt with questions of ethics andmorality and wrote consistently against racism and apartheid which existedin South Africa. As a testimony to her anti-establishment writings, her novels, Burger’s Daughter and July’s People were banned by the then apartheid regime of South Africa. She joined the African National Congress supporting Nelson Mandela in the days when the party was banned and frequently took part in the anti-apartheid movement against the Government in South Africa at that time. She is credited with giving Mandela advice on his famous defense speech of 1964 at his trial when he was convicted for life. She also led campaigns for other issues like HIV/AIDS. Gordimer’s works are internationally acclaimed because of their unique focus on political issues,especially on the moral and psychological tension associated with apartheid. Thus, racism in South Africa is the pivotal point of her works,with the themes of love and politics forming part of the whole. Her stories are about ordinary people, who have to make difficult choices fraught with moral complexities.The portrayal of her characters is much nuanced as their ostensible social identities and the choices made by them seem to contradict each. Her novels include: The Lying Days (1953), A World of Strangers (1958), Occasion for Loving (1963), The Late Bourgeois World (1966), A Guest of Honour (1970), The Conservationist (1974), Burger’s Daughter (1979), July’s People (1981), A Sport of Nature (1987), My Son’sStory (1990), None to Accompany Me (1994), The House Gun (1998), The Pickup (2001), Get aLife (2005) and No Time Like the Present (2012). Her debut novel, The Lying Days (1953) is a bildungsroman located in the Transvaal, a mining town near Johannesburg, South Africa which also happens to beSprings, her home town. It is a semi-autobiographical novel, depicting the story of a young politically conscious white woman, Helen, living in a small town of South Africa which is under apartheid regime. The novel focuses on an area which Gordimer has explored throughout her life: the mingling of the personal and the political, and the way in which individual lives are formed due to the impact of external forces. In Occasion for Loving (1963), she intertwines racism and love.The novel is a portrait ofinter- racial relationships which were fraught with danger as they were criminalized by the South African government. It depicts the unsatisfactory marriage ofthe protagonist of the novel, Ann Davis with ethno-musicologist, Boaz Davis and heraffair with Gideon Shibalo a black artist. Her novel Burger’s Daughter (1979) is the story of a woman, Rosa Burger, the central characterand narrator, who is the daughter of a martyr of the South African anti-apartheid movement and a mother who is also associated with the anti-apartheid movement and Communist ideology. Inspired by her Communist and anti-apartheid parents, she is inclined towards political activism. In the novel, she is seen to be analyzing her relationship with her dead father. The novel was published in the aftermath of the Soweto uprising which took place in South Africa and was banned by the government. In response to the ban, Gordimer wrote a protest in a pamphlet which was widely circulated. The book has been acknowledged as among the “few truly great political novels ever written”, while Gordimer herself described it as a “coded homage” to the Afrikaner lawyer Bram Fisher, who was the defense lawyer of Nelson Mandela. Her novel, July’s People (1981), features a bloody South African revolution where everything is the reverse of the reality of South African society of that time. In the story, it is the white people who are being hunted and murdered by the black people. The story deals with an educated white couple, Maureen and Bamford Smales, whose lives are at risk due to the revolution and who are seeking refuge with their trustworthy, loyal and life-long servant, July who tries hard to save them. The novel features various African ethnic groups associated with July his family and his village and the family of Smales. It describes the savagery,violence and racial hatred that mark the actions of people who in other circumstances might be quite human. Burger’s Daughter and July’s People are regarded as the most complex works by Gordimer. Gordimer’s novel, The Pickup (2002) is an award winning novel dealing with diasporic issues of displacement, dislocation, alienation.

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