Transgressing boundaries : gender, identity, culture, and the 'other' in postcolonial women's narratives in East Africa / Elizabeth F. Oldfield.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Oldfield, Elizabeth F.

Series:

Cross/cultures ; 164.

Cross/cultures : readings in post/colonial literatures and cultures in English ; 164

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Postcolonialism in literature.

Women authors, African.

African fiction--Women authors--History and criticism.

African fiction.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (278 p.)

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam : Rodopi, 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Fictions written between 1939 and 2005 by indigenous and white (post)colonial women writers emerging from an African–European cultural experience form the focus of this study. Their voyages into the European diasporic space in Africa are important for conveying how African women’s literature is situated in relation to colonialism. Notwithstanding the centrality of African literature in the new postcolonial literatures in English, the accomplishments of the indigenous writer Grace Ogot have been eclipsed by the critical attention given to her male counterparts, while Elspeth Huxley, Barbara Kimenye, and Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye, who are of Western cultural provenance but adopt an African perspective, are not accommodated by the genre of ‘expatriate literature’. The present study of both indigenous and white (post)colonial women’s narratives that are common to both categories fills this gap. Focused on the representation of gender, identity, culture, and the ‘Other’, the texts selected are set in Kenya and Uganda, and a main concern is with the extent to which they are influenced by setting and intercultural influences. The ‘African’ woman’s creation of textuality is at once the expression of female individualities and a transgression of boundaries. The particular category of fiction for children as written by Kimenye and Macgoye reveals the configuration of a voice and identity for the female ‘Other’ and writer which enables a subversive renegotiation of identity in the face of patriarchal traditions.

Contents:

Preliminary Material

Agency, Voice, and Sense of Self: Re-Writing ‘African’ Women’s Identity

Space and ‘African’ Women Writers

Woman, the Visitor: Re-Presenting the Female Authorial Voice

Delineating the Position of African Women

Creative Dialogue, Signification, Gender, and Space: Talking through Contemporary Children’s Stories

Conclusion

Works Cited

Index.

Notes:

Based on the author's thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Derby.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed October 9, 2013).

ISBN:

94-012-0955-3

OCLC:

863202449

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789401209557 DOI