Civil War and Woman's Place in Léonora Miano's L'intérieur de la nuit (Dark Heart of the Night)

Much of the critical response to Léonora Miano's first novel, L'intérieur de la nuit, focused disproportionately on those parts of the narrative that evoked the violence and inhumanity of civil war in Africa. One of the outcomes of war, however, has often been to provide a brief window when women are able to challenge the status quo, find their voices, and even rise to positions of leadership. By referring to studies of war in West Africa by historians and political scientists and to works by feminist geographers, this analysis of Miano's novel examines her depiction of the evolving dimensions of women's place in a time of civil conflict: how it is defined at the beginning of the novel, how it is appropriated by the insurgents to force the cooperation of the villagers, and how its traditional dimensions are eventually challenged by the experience.