Africa Wo/Man Palava
The Nigerian Novel by Women
9780226620855
Africa Wo/Man Palava
The Nigerian Novel by Women
Africa Wo/Man Palava offers the first close look at eight Nigerian women writers and proposes a new vernacular theory based on their work. Flora Nwapa, Adaora Lily Ulasi, Buchi Emecheta, Funmilayo Fakunle, Ifeoma Okoye, Zaynab Alkali, Eno Obong, and Simi Bedford are the writers Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi considers. African womanism, an emerging model of female discourse, is at the heart of their writing. In their work, female resistance shifts from the idea of palava, or trouble, to a focus on consensus, compromise, and cooperation; it tackles sexism, totalitarianism, and ethnic prejudice. Such inclusiveness, Ogunyemi shows, stems from an emphasis on motherhood, acknowledging that everyone is a mother’s child, capable of creating palava and generating a compromise.
Ogunyemi uses the novels to trace a Nigerian women’s literary tradition that reflects an ideology centered on children and community. Of prime importance is the paradoxical Mammywata figure, the independent, childless mother, who serves as a basis for the new woman in these novels. Ogunyemi tracks this figure through many permutations, from matriarch to exile to woman writer, her multiple personalities reflecting competing loyalties—to self and other, children and nation. Such fragmented personalities characterize the postcolonial condition in their writing. Mapping geographies of pain and endurance, the work opens a space for addressing the palava between different groups of people. Valuable as the first sustained critical study of a substantial but little known body of literature, this book also counters the shortcomings of prevailing "masculinist" theories of black literature in a powerful narrative of the Nigerian world.
Ogunyemi uses the novels to trace a Nigerian women’s literary tradition that reflects an ideology centered on children and community. Of prime importance is the paradoxical Mammywata figure, the independent, childless mother, who serves as a basis for the new woman in these novels. Ogunyemi tracks this figure through many permutations, from matriarch to exile to woman writer, her multiple personalities reflecting competing loyalties—to self and other, children and nation. Such fragmented personalities characterize the postcolonial condition in their writing. Mapping geographies of pain and endurance, the work opens a space for addressing the palava between different groups of people. Valuable as the first sustained critical study of a substantial but little known body of literature, this book also counters the shortcomings of prevailing "masculinist" theories of black literature in a powerful narrative of the Nigerian world.
Table of Contents
Foreword by Catharine R. Stimpson
Acknowledgments
Firing Can(n)ons: Salvos by African Women Writers
1: An Excursion into Woman’s (S)(p)ace
The Myths of Osun and Odu: Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Secrets of
Verbal Authority
The Mammywata Myth as Gendered Insurance
Chi/Ori, or, The Mother Within
Omunwa/Iyalode, or, The Mother Without, or, The Daughter-of-the-Soil
The Ogbanje/Abiku Complex: Mother as Jinxed Care Giver
A Taste of Women in Nigeria: The Sweet Mother, The Bitter Wife, The Sour
Widow, The Salt of the Earth
2: (En)gender(ing) Discourse: Palaver-Palava and African Womanism
Palavering: Bones of Contention
African Womanist Ideology
3: Flora Nwapa: Genesis and Matrix
Strategies in the Palaver
Uhamiri and the Secrets of the Ugwuta Homestead
Efuru: In Search of the Mother
Twice-Told Tales: Idu Revisited
Never Again: The War to End All Wars
One Is Enough: Bitter Wife, Sweet Mother
Women Are Different: Stasis
Nwapa’s Political Acuity: "A Woman Protects a Man"—Silently
4: Adaora Lily Ulasi: Juju Fiction
The Magic of Confusion: A Long (Overdue) Introduction
Many Thing You No Understand: The Curse of Ignorance
Many Thing Begin for Change: For Better, For Worse
The Night Harry Died: Resurrection and the Arts of Divination
Who Is Jonah?: From the Belly of the Fish
The Man from Sagamu: Divine Mediation
"Ise," Say I—To That Prayer of Ulasi’s
5: Buchi Emecheta: The Been-to (Bintu) Novel
The Been-to (Dis)Advantage
In the Ditch: But Conditions Are looking Up
Second-Class Citizen: First-Rate Woman
The Bride Price: What Price Freedom?
The Slave Girl: Slave Traffickers and Vernacular Ethics
The Joys of Motherhood and the Throes of Fatherhood
Destination Biafra: Humpty-Dumpty and Daughters-of-the-Soil
Double Yoke: Double Yolk and Yokefellows
The Family: Uncovered Secrets
Kehinde: Bintu and the Search for a Home
6: Fakunle, Okoye, Alkali, Eno Obong, Bedford: Siddon Look
Sweet Mothers: The Present Generation
Funmilayo Fakunle: Opening the Secrets in the Calabash
Ifeoma Okoye: Maladies, Malaise, and National Recovery
Zaynab Alkali: Salts and Preservation
Eno Obong: Mammywata to the Rescue
Simi Bedford: Home as Exile and Exile as Home
Holding Fire: For Home and Country
Works Cited
Index
Acknowledgments
Firing Can(n)ons: Salvos by African Women Writers
1: An Excursion into Woman’s (S)(p)ace
The Myths of Osun and Odu: Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Secrets of
Verbal Authority
The Mammywata Myth as Gendered Insurance
Chi/Ori, or, The Mother Within
Omunwa/Iyalode, or, The Mother Without, or, The Daughter-of-the-Soil
The Ogbanje/Abiku Complex: Mother as Jinxed Care Giver
A Taste of Women in Nigeria: The Sweet Mother, The Bitter Wife, The Sour
Widow, The Salt of the Earth
2: (En)gender(ing) Discourse: Palaver-Palava and African Womanism
Palavering: Bones of Contention
African Womanist Ideology
3: Flora Nwapa: Genesis and Matrix
Strategies in the Palaver
Uhamiri and the Secrets of the Ugwuta Homestead
Efuru: In Search of the Mother
Twice-Told Tales: Idu Revisited
Never Again: The War to End All Wars
One Is Enough: Bitter Wife, Sweet Mother
Women Are Different: Stasis
Nwapa’s Political Acuity: "A Woman Protects a Man"—Silently
4: Adaora Lily Ulasi: Juju Fiction
The Magic of Confusion: A Long (Overdue) Introduction
Many Thing You No Understand: The Curse of Ignorance
Many Thing Begin for Change: For Better, For Worse
The Night Harry Died: Resurrection and the Arts of Divination
Who Is Jonah?: From the Belly of the Fish
The Man from Sagamu: Divine Mediation
"Ise," Say I—To That Prayer of Ulasi’s
5: Buchi Emecheta: The Been-to (Bintu) Novel
The Been-to (Dis)Advantage
In the Ditch: But Conditions Are looking Up
Second-Class Citizen: First-Rate Woman
The Bride Price: What Price Freedom?
The Slave Girl: Slave Traffickers and Vernacular Ethics
The Joys of Motherhood and the Throes of Fatherhood
Destination Biafra: Humpty-Dumpty and Daughters-of-the-Soil
Double Yoke: Double Yolk and Yokefellows
The Family: Uncovered Secrets
Kehinde: Bintu and the Search for a Home
6: Fakunle, Okoye, Alkali, Eno Obong, Bedford: Siddon Look
Sweet Mothers: The Present Generation
Funmilayo Fakunle: Opening the Secrets in the Calabash
Ifeoma Okoye: Maladies, Malaise, and National Recovery
Zaynab Alkali: Salts and Preservation
Eno Obong: Mammywata to the Rescue
Simi Bedford: Home as Exile and Exile as Home
Holding Fire: For Home and Country
Works Cited
Index