"IN an online interview with Lucianne Englert, Eileen Julien, professor of comparative literature at Indiana University, US, mentioned that, "women make Africa run." Reflecting on that statement, I can't help but think that nowhere is it truer than in contemporary African literature. If you were to look around right now you would find out that a greater number of the literary interventions in Africa were founded by women writers. You may be tempted to ascribe this to the impact of postcolonial feminism or to the implications of globalisation – or perhaps women writers are no longer content to simply write from the margin?
Indeed, what we have come to regard as African literature owes its growth in principle to male literary creativity and practice. Time was when male authors dominated the literary space, but this seems to be no longer the case. Ten years ago, in 2004, Ernest Emenyonu, one of Africa's eminent literary scholars, noted in his editorial of ALT 24 the upsurge in writing by African women. It marked a new direction in African literature, given that the African literary landscape has been defined by the male voice, as it were, for decades – much to the detriment of the female voice. Only a handful of female African writers, it has been noted, were visible around the second half of the twentieth century: Flora Nwapa, Grace Ogot, Nadine Gordimer, Ama Ata Aidoo, Buchi Emecheta, Bessie Head, Mariama Ba, Nawal el Saadawi, Miriam Tlali, Nafissatou Dialo, Aminata Sow Fall, Zulu Sofola, Fatima Dike, Rebeka Njau, and Micere Mugo."
- Ikhide
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