African Women Writing Resistance: Contemporary Voices ed. by Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez et al. (review)

African Women Writing Resistance: Contemporary Voices is a sister-volume to another collection edited by Jennifer Brody de Hernandez and colleagues, Women Writing Resistance: Essays on Latin-America and the Caribbean. Since it can be difficult for both specialists and general readers to have access to African women writers beyond those popularly known or taught around the world—such as Calixthe Beyala, Aminata Sow Fall, Buchi Emecheta, Monique Ilboudo, and Mariama Bâ—the book is tremendously valuable, presenting not only the voices of an emerging generation of writers and the contemporary challenges that they face, but also the ways their writing serves strategies of social resistance.

The editors describe most of the contributors as “relatively young and just emerging on the literary scene.” Others they refer to as “‘activist’ mothers of the current generation of young women” (5)—older writers such as Nawal El Saadawi, Elizabeth Bouanga, and Patricia Chogugudza. Along with an insightful introduction, the volume consists of twenty-seven new and nine previously published pieces on such topics as intertribal and interethnic conflicts, the degradation of the environment, polygamy, domestic abuse, female genital cutting, Shari’a law, intergenerational tensions, and emigration and exile. The authors hail from thirteen African countries, including Morocco, Ghana, Uganda, Senegal, Nigeria, and Congo-Brazzaville, with narratives ranging from biographical accounts, testimonies, and interviews with ordinary African women to short stories, poetry, plays, folktales, and song lyrics. The tone of the book is established in the foreword, a poem by the Ghanaian scholar-poet Abena Busia, who poignantly asks, “‘Young’ as we are, if we don’t tell our stories who will speak up for us when… ?” She then proceeds to recount the past struggles and motives of African women in their songs and narratives and warns against failing to continue:

We are the tomorrow our grandmothers dreamedWe are grandmothers dreaming other tomorrows—Our own compassionate witnesses, standing at the edge of time.

The book contains many compelling contributions. “The Day When God Changed His Mind,” for instance, is an amusing myth about a woman determined to claim the throne stolen from her family. “Interview with Kaya a Mbaya” portrays an ordinary woman from the Babongo (“forest peoples”) in Congo, a mother and grandmother in her forties not shy about expressing her views on adultery, sexuality, and the widespread suspicion between the Pygmies and Bantu communities. In “Letters to My Cousin,” a Zimbabwean lawyer and social activist writes a series of partly biographical and partly fictional letters to a female cousin about various issues facing today’s young Zimbabwean women, including divorce, HIV/AIDS, the disconnect between younger and older generations of women, and the divisions between survivors of domestic violence and those still caught in such violence. “Women’s Responses to State Violence in the Niger Delta” introduces us to women’s resistance and survival tactics in a context of gendered violence and environmental threats (burning gas flares, leaking and old pipelines). From another theater of conflict, “A Poem Written in the Ink of the Blood Shed in Rwanda” raises fundamental questions about life in post-genocide Rwanda. “Surviving Me,” by contrast, is a play about young black educated men and women, who, when faced with such traditional issues as circumcision and menstrual rites, often choose to follow tradition and forego Western teachings, despite questions they may have.

The book ends with the following wish from the editors: “We send [the book] into the world in the hope that it will be the inspiration for ever-expanding rings of women writing resistance in Africa and worldwide” (xiv). As a reader of these engrossing tales of resistance by African women, I say “thank you.” The volume boldly tackles how women today across Africa face myriad challenges. A rich introduction to numerous social, cultural, and political activists and creative writers, the book both enlightens and delights.