Download or read book Efuru written by Flora Nwapa and published by Waveland Press. This book was released on 2013-10-21 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Appearing in 1966, Efuru was the first internationally published book, in English, by a Nigerian woman. Flora Nwapa (1931–1993) sets her story in a small village in colonial West Africa as she describes the youth, marriage, motherhood, and eventual personal epiphany of a young woman in rural Nigeria. The respected and beautiful protagonist, an independent-minded Ibo woman named Efuru, wishes to be a mother. Her eventual tragedy is that she is not able to marry or raise children successfully. Alone and childless, Efuru realizes she surely must have a higher calling and goes to the lake goddess of her tribe, Uhamiri, to discover the path she must follow. The work, a rich exploration of Nigerian village life and values, offers a realistic picture of gender issues in a patriarchal society as well as the struggles of a nation exploited by colonialism.
Download or read book 2Fish written by Jhené Aiko Efuru Chilombo and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-12-19 with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter Jhené Aiko Efuru Chilombo has developed and refined a method of emoting through writing. 2Fish is a collection of intimate poems (and a few short stories) written by Chilombo from adolescence to adulthood, in no particular order. The book details Chilombo's thoughts in their most raw and honest form taken directly from a collection of notebooks she has kept since age 12.
Download or read book Binding Cultures written by Gay Wilentz and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1992-05-22 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Wilentz . . . makes convincing arguments for the connections between African and Afro-American women's culture." —Nellie McKay "Wilentz's jargon-free, intelligent discussion . . . will appeal to students in African, African American, and women's literature courses, as well as general readers interested in the emerging field." —Choice "Through these works, Wilentz demonstrates the powerful transformation possible through understanding—and embracing—the past, even if that past includes oppression and brutalization." —Belles Lettres Binding Cultures investigates the cultural bonds between African and African-American women writers such as Nigerian Flora Nwapa and Ghanaians Efua Sutherland and Ama Ata Aidoo, writers who focus on the role of women in passing on cultural values to future generations, and African-American writers Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, and Paule Marshall, who self-consciously evoke African culture to help create a more integrated African-American community.
Download or read book Women are Different written by Flora Nwapa and published by . This book was released on 1992-01 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The moving story of a group of Nigerian women which follows their lives from their schooldays together through the trials and tribulations of their adult lives. Through their stories we see some of the universal problems faced by women everywhere: the struggle for financial independence and a rewarding career, the difficulties of relationships, and the dilemmas of bringing up a family, often without a partner. Set against the background of a developing Nigeria, this novel shows Nwapa at her finest.
Download or read book Holding the World Together written by Nwando Achebe and published by University of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 2019-04-16 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Featuring contributions from some of the most accomplished scholars on the topic, Holding the World Together explores the rich and varied ways in which women have wielded power across the African continent, from the precolonial period to the present. Suitable for classroom use, this comprehensive volume considers such topics as the representation of African women, their role in national liberation movements, their experiences of religious fundamentalism (both Christian and Muslim), their incorporation into the world economy, changing family and marriage systems, impacts of the world economy on their lives and livelihoods, and the unique challenges they face in the areas of health and disease. Contributors: Nwando Achebe, Ousseina Alidou, Signe Arnfred, Andrea L. Arrington-Sirois, Henryatta Ballah, Teresa Barnes, Josephine Beoku-Betts, Emily Burril, Abena P. A. Busia, Gracia Clark, Alicia Decker, Karen Flint, December Green, Cajetan Iheka, Rachel Jean-Baptiste, Elizabeth M. Perego, Claire Robertson, Kathleen Sheldon, Aili Mari Tripp, Cassandra Veney
Download or read book African Novels in the Classroom written by Margaret Jean Hay and published by Lynne Rienner Publishers. This book was released on 2000 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many teachers of African studies have found novels to be effective assignments in courses. In this guide, teachers describe their favourite African novels - drawn from all over the continent - and share their experiences of using them in the classroom.
Download or read book The Lake Goddess written by Flora Nwapa and published by . This book was released on 2023-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Lake Goddess came to be Flora Nwapa's last novel, yet possibly her most important one, as it restores African culture and spirituality. "Nwapa's message is clear: she-Ona/Ogbuide/woman-may have many children, but she also independently succeeds in her own life, and she is a source of healing and inspiration to all human beings suffering from the ills and madness of modern society worldwide. The goddess whom Nwapa invoked finally reemerges in her original glory in The Lake Goddess to brighten women's path. Her powers and mysteries shine, once again, despite the onslaught of foreign powers and their religions, when Nwapa accounts for the destructive forces of globalization and for attempts to push Uhammiri's children into the abyss of derangement, to rob the deity of her benevolence, and to deny her people both children and wealth. Yet, when the lake goddess finally appears with her image fully restored in Nwapa's last novel, the messenger, who invoked her, has left the land, crossed the river, and joined her ancestors to live on.
Download or read book Across the Lines written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-05-16 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This third volume of ASNEL Papers covers a wide range of theoretical and thematic approaches to the subject of intertextuality. Intertextual relations between oral and written versions of literature, text and performance, as well as problems emerging from media transitions, regionally instructed forms of intertextuality, and the works of individual authors are equally dealt with. Intertextuality as both a creative and a critical practice frequently exposes the essential arbitrariness of literary and cultural manifestations that have become canonized. The transformation and transfer of meanings which accompanies any crossing between texts rests not least on the nature of the artistic corpus embodied in the general framework of historically and socially determined cultural traditions. Traditions, however, result from selective forms of perception; they are as much inventions as they are based on exclusion. Intertextuality leads to a constant reinforcement of tradition, while, at the same time, intertextual relations between the new literatures and other English-language literatures are all too obvious. Despite the inevitable impact of tradition, the new literatures tend to employ a dynamic reading of culture which fosters social process and transition, thus promoting transcultural rather than intercultural modes of communication. Writing and reading across borders becomes a dialogue which reveals both differences and similarities. More than a decolonizing form of deconstruction, intertextuality is a strategy for communicating meaning across cultural boundaries.
Download or read book Efuru written by Flora Nwapa and published by Heinemann. This book was released on 1966 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After two unsuccessful marriages and the death of her only child, Efuru becomes a woman to suspect in her small Nigerian village.
Download or read book Stories of Women written by Elleke Boehmer and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2005-09-03 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text combines Boehmer's keynote essays on the mother figure and the postcolonial nation, with incisive new work on male autobiography, 'daughter' writers, the colonial body, the trauma of the post-colony, and the nation in a transnational context.
Download or read book Contemporary African Literature and the Politics of Gender written by Florence Stratton and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-09-23 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The influence of colonialism and race on the development of African literature has been the subject of a number of studies. The effect of patriarchy and gender, however, and indeed the contributions of African women, have up until now been largely ignored by the critics. Contemporary African Literature and the Politics of Gender is the first extensive account of African literature from a feminist perspective. In this first radical and exciting work Florence Stratton outlines the features of an emerging female tradition in African fiction. A chapter is dedicated to each to the works of four women writers: Grace Ogot, Flora Nwapa, Buchi Emecheta and Mariama Ba. In addition she provides challenging new readings of canonical male authors such as Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiongo'o and Wole Soyinka. Contemporary African Literature and the Politics of Gender thus provides the first truly comprehensive definition of the current literary tradition in Africa.
Download or read book Teaching Postcolonial Environmental Literature and Media written by Cajetan Iheka and published by Modern Language Association. This book was released on 2021-12-28 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking up the idea that teaching is a political act, this collection of essays reflects on recent trends in ecocriticism and the implications for pedagogy. Focusing on a diverse set of literature and media, the book also provides background on historical and theoretical issues that animate the field of postcolonial ecocriticism. The scope is broad, encompassing not only the Global South but also parts of the Global North that have been subject to environmental degradation as a result of colonial practices. Considering both the climate crisis and the crisis in the humanities, the volume navigates theoretical resources, contextual scaffolding, classroom activities, assessment, and pedagogical possibilities and challenges. Essays are grounded in environmental justice and the project to decolonize the classroom, addressing works from Africa, New Zealand, Asia, and Latin America and issues such as queer ecofeminism, disability, Latinx literary production, animal studies, interdisciplinarity, and working with environmental justice organizations.
Download or read book The First English Novel from an African female Efuru by Flora Nwapa written by Mumtaz Mazumdar and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2013-02-20 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientific Essay from the year 2013 in the subject African Studies - African diaspora, , language: English, abstract: The novel ‘Efuru’ is written by Flora Nwapa in the year 1966. Nwapa is the first female writer in English in Nigeria. It is Nwapa who opened up opportunities for other women writers of the future. She showed deep understanding with ordinary Igbo women of her indigenous tribe, trapped in local social situations over which they could exert little control. The male writers earlier had not explicitly represented about the female Igbos. If they had ever done so, it was done in very partial manner and andocentric. It was stereotypical representation. The reality of the Igbo women was first presented by Flora Nwapa. Her novel ‘Efuru’ presents the rural Igbo woman. Economic independence of the rural Igbo woman is one of the themes in the novel. The most important institutions of family and marriage are brought in focus. The ‘episteme’ of the male writers available to readers then, concentrated upon the impacts of the political transformations upon people as the themes, due to recent change of power from the British to the Nigerians. It was at that time just after six years of Independence that Nwapa quickly took up the social issues relating to the Igbo women. The social issues combined the marriage, economic and religious aspects of the Igbo woman. Efuru is the protagonist in the novel. She goes through two marriages. But both her marriages end due to her childlessness. Even her immediate society refuses to be kind to her. Stunned Efuru starts taking refuge in the company of one of the Igbo Goddesses or Mami Wata, named Uhamiri. She becomes a selected worshipper of the Mami Wata. The sub-divisions in the article will show how marriage fails to stable Efuru and an ancient religion comes to give some relief to Efuru. Key Words Nwapa; Efuru; Mami Wata; Childlessness; Igbo; Economic; Nigeria
Download or read book Idu written by Flora Nwapa and published by . This book was released on 2024-05-31 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'What we are all praying for is children. What else do we want if we have children?' These two sentences from Idu contain the basic theme of this novel set in a rural Nigerian community where the life of the individual is woven into that of the community as a whole. Idu, the protagonist, faces the challenge of infertility, leading her husband Adiewere to take a second wife. Eventually, Idu gives birth to a son named Ijoma, but it takes four years before she becomes pregnant again. However, tragedy strikes as Adiewere mysteriously dies before the arrival of their second child. Defying societal norms, Idu rejects the idea of marrying her husband's brother and instead chooses to join her husband in the afterlife, showcasing that children alone do not define her ultimate desires in life. Idu stands as a testament to Nwapa's commitment to portraying the lives and struggles of African women in the face of societal pressures.
Download or read book Bearing Witness written by Wendy Griswold and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-05 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Greed, frustrated love, traffic jams, infertility, politics, polygamy. These--together with depictions of traditional village life and the impact of colonialism made familiar to Western readers through Chinua Achebe's writing--are the stuff of Nigerian fiction. Bearing Witness examines this varied content and the determined people who, against all odds, write, publish, sell, and read novels in Africa's most populous nation. Drawing on interviews with Nigeria's writers, publishers, booksellers, and readers, surveys, and a careful reading of close to 500 Nigerian novels--from lightweight romances to literary masterpieces--Wendy Griswold explores how global cultural flows and local conflicts meet in the production and reception of fiction. She argues that Nigerian readers and writers form a reading class that unabashedly believes in progress, rationality, and the slow-but-inevitable rise of a reading culture. But they do so within a society that does not support their assumptions and does not trust literature, making them modernists in a country that is simultaneously premodern and postmodern. Without privacy, reliable electricity, political freedom, or even social toleration of bookworms, these Nigerians write and read political satires, formula romances, war stories, complex gender fiction, blood-and-sex crime capers, nostalgic portraits of village life, and profound explorations of how decent people get by amid urban chaos. Bearing Witness is an inventive and moving work of cultural sociology that may be the most comprehensive sociological analysis of a literary system ever written.
Download or read book The Feminization of Development Processes in Africa written by James S. Etim and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 1999-04-30 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Women have historically provided vision and leadership to African countries and are now being recognized as pivotal to the overall sustainable development of Africa. In many cases, however, this recognition has not resulted in the empowerment of African women, who still face great discrimination. This edited volume explores the contributions women have made to all phases of development—planning, design, construction, implementation, and operation—and the obstacles they have had to face. Besides analyzing the current situation and identifying trends, the contributors also make recommendations for policy reform and for future planning.
Download or read book Wilderness Into Civilized Shapes written by Laura Wright and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study examines how postcolonial landscapes and environmental issues are represented in fiction. Wright creates a provocative discourse in which the fields of postcolonial theory and ecocriticism are brought together. Laura Wright explores the changes brought by colonialism and globalization as depicted in an array of international works of fiction in four thematically arranged chapters. She looks first at two traditional oral histories retold in modern novels, Zakes Mda's The Heart of Redness (South Africa) and Ngugi wa Thiong'o's Petals of Blood (Kenya), that deal with the potentially devastating effects of development, particularly through deforestation and the replacement of native flora with European varieties. Wright then uses J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace (South Africa), Yann Martel's Life of Pi (India and Canada), and Joy Williams's The Quick and the Dead (United States) to explore the use of animals as metaphors for subjugated groups of individuals. The third chapter deals with India's water crisis via Arundhati Roy's activism and her novel, The God of Small Things. Finally, Wright looks at three novels--Flora Nwapa's Efuru (Nigeria), Keri Hulme's The Bone People (New Zealand), and Sindiwe Magona's Mother to Mother (South Africa)--that depict women's relationships to the land from which they have been dispossessed. Throughout Wilderness into Civilized Shapes, Wright rearticulates questions about the role of the writer of fiction as environmental activist and spokesperson, the connections between animal ethics and environmental responsibility, and the potential perpetuation of a neocolonial framework founded on western commodification and resource-based imperialism.
