And wrote my story anyway : black south african women's novels as feminism

"Part literary history, part feminist historiography And Wrote My Story Anyway: Black South African Women’s Novels as Feminism critically examines influential novels in English by eminent black female writers. Studying these writers’ key engagements with nationalism, race and gender during apartheid and the transition to democracy, Barbara Boswell traces the ways in which black women’s fiction critically interrogates narrow ideas of nationalism. She examines who is included and excluded, while producing alternative visions for a more just South African society. This is an erudite analysis of ten well-known South African writers, spanning the apartheid and post-apartheid era: Miriam Tlali, Lauretta Ngcobo, Farida Karodia, Agnes Sam, Sindiwe Magona, Zoë Wicomb, Rayda Jacobs, Yvette Christiansë, Kagiso Lesego Molope and Zukiswa Wanner. Boswell argues that black women’s fiction could and should be read as a subversive site of knowledge production in a setting, which, for centuries, denied black women’s voices and intellects. Reading their fiction as theory, for the first time these writers’ works are placed in sustained conversation with each other, producing an arc of feminist criticism that speaks forcefully back to the abuse of a racist, white-dominated, patriarchal power." Part literary history, part feminist historiography And Wrote My Story Anyway: Black South African Women's Novels as Feminism critically examines influential novels in English by eminent black female writers. Studying these writers' key engagements with nationalism, race and gender during apartheid and the transition to democracy, Barbara Boswell traces the ways in which black women's fiction critically interrogates narrow ideas of nationalism. She examines who is included and excluded, while producing alternative visions for a more just South African society. This is an erudite analysis of ten well known writers, spanning both the apartheid and post-apartheid era: Miriam Tlali, Lauretta Ngcobo, Farida Karodia, Agnes Sam, Sindiwe Magona, Zoë Wicomb, Rayda Jacobs, Yvette Christiansë, Kagiso Lesego Molope and Zukiswa Wanner. Boswell argues that black women's fiction could and should be read as a subversive site of knowledge production in a setting which, for centuries, denied black women's voices and intellects. Reading their fiction as theory, for the first time these writers' works are placed in sustained conversation with each other, producing an arc of feminist criticism that speaks forcefully back to the abuse of a racist, white-dominated, patriarchal power." Critically examines influential novels in English by eminent black female writers Studying these writers' key engagements with nationalism, race and gender during apartheid and the transition to democracy, Barbara Boswell traces the ways in which black women's fiction criticality interrogates narrow ideas of nationalism. She examines who is included and excluded, while producing alternative visions for a more just South African society. This is an erudite analysis of ten well-known South African writers, spanning the apartheid and post-apartheid era: Miriam Tlali, Lauretta Ngcobo, Farida Karodia, Agnes Sam, Sindiwe Magona, Zoë Wicomb, Rayda Jacobs, Yvette Christiansë, Kagiso Lesego Molope, and Zukiswa Wanner. Boswell argues that black women's fiction could and should be read as a subversive site of knowledge production in a setting, which, for centuries, denied black women's voices and intellects. Reading their fiction as theory, for the first time these writers' works are placed in sustained conversation with each other, producing an arc of feminist criticism that speaks forcefully back to the abuse of a racist, white-dominated, patriarchal power. Studying these writers' key engagements with nationalism, race and gender during apartheid and the transition to democracy, Barbara Boswell traces the ways in which black women's fiction criticality interrogates narrow ideas of nationalism. She examines who is included and excluded, while producing alternative visions for a more just South African society.0This is an erudite analysis of ten well-known South African writers, spanning the apartheid and post-apartheid era: Miriam Tlali, Lauretta Ngcobo, Farida Karodia, Agnes Sam, Sindiwe Magona, Zoë Wicomb, Rayda Jacobs, Yvette Christiansë, Kagiso Lesego Molope, and Zukiswa Wanner. Boswell argues that black women's fiction could and should be read as a subversive site of knowledge production in a setting, which, for centuries, denied black women's voices and intellects.0Reading their fiction as theory, for the first time these writers' works are placed in sustained conversation with each other, producing an arc of feminist criticism that speaks forcefully back to the abuse of a racist, white-dominated, patriarchal power South African Literature, Feminism Cover 1 Title Page 2 Dedication 6 Contents 8 Acknowledgmentts 10 Author’s Preface 12 Acronyms 20 Introduction: ‘And Wrote My Story Anyway’: Black South African Women’s Novels as Feminism 22 1. Writing as Activism: A History of Black South African Women’s Writing 48 2. Rewriting the Apartheid Nation: Miriam Tlali and Lauretta Ngcobo 80 3. Dissenting Daughters: Girlhood and Nation in the Fiction of Farida Karodia and Agnes Sam 110 4. Interrogating ‘Truth’ in the Post-Apartheid Nation: Zoë Wicomb and Sindiwe Magona 136 5. Making Personhood: Remaking History in Yvette Christiansë and Rayda Jacobs’s Neo-Slave Narratives 166 6. Black Women Writing ‘New’ South African Masculinities: Kagiso Lesego Molope and Zukiswa Wanner 192 Conclusion: Towards a Black South African Feminist Criticism 220 Select Bibliography 230 Index 244 Part literary history, part feminist historiography, Barbara Boswell's And Wrote My Story Anyway: Black South African Women's Novels as Feminism examines ten novels and places them in a conversation with each other. The result is an arc of feminist criticism speaking forcefully to racist, white-dominated, patriarchal power