Abstract
Following a shift from testimonial narrative to more openly rebellious voices in the eighties, critical of post colonial, sociopolitical African societies,1 a new generation of young women novelists has emerged in the nineties. In an article reviewing African women’s writing in the past two decades,2 I asked the following questions: would the Senegalese Mariama Bâ still write the way she was writing in 1980? What has changed since then? What are these new voices expressing? Is it still adequate and meaningful to talk of a “gendered writing”?
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Notes
For a detailed study of these changes in African women’s writing, see Odile Cazenave, Rebellious Women: A New Generation of Female African Novelists (London: Lynne Rienner, 2000), translated by the author from Femmes rebelles: naissance d’un nouveau roman africain au féminin (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1996).
Odile Cazenave, “Vingt après Mariama Bâ: le roman africain au féminin,” in Africultures 35, Masculin-Féminin, Paris: L’Harmattan (Février 2001): 7–14.
For a detailed analysis of the Beur novel, see Alec G. Hargreaves, Voices from the North African Immigrant Community in France; Immigration and Identity in Beur Fiction (Oxford: Berg, 1991); and
Michel Laronde, Autour du roman Beur (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1993).
Tassadit Imache’s Une fille sans histoire (1989),
Sebbar’s Shérazade (1982),
Farida Belghoul’s Georgette! (1986),
D jura’s Le voile du silence (1990),
Nini Sorayas Ils disent que je suis une Beurette (1993)—all illustrate the violence and difficulties encountered by the Bemettes.
Lettres parisiennes: autopsie de l’exil. In collaboration with Nancy Huston (Paris: Barrault, 1986; Collection J’ai lu, 1999).
Une enfance d’ailleurs, 17 écrivains racontent. With Nancy Huston (Paris: Belfond, 1993).
See, for instance, Françoise Ega’s Lettres à une noire (1978), published posthumously, in which she underlines the lack of solidarity—how the protagonist, a housemaid, is regarded as different by the French and looked down upon by her compatriots for being a housemaid.
For a detailed analysis of the novel, see Patrice J. Proulx, “Textualizing the Immigrant Community: Françoise Ega’s Lettres à une Noire,” in Immigrant Narratives in Contemporary France (2001): 141–49.
See in particular Yamina Benguigui’s Mémoires d’immigrés (1998).
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© 2003 Roger Célestin, Eliane DalMolin, Isabelle de Courtivron
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Cazenave, O. (2003). Francophone Women Writers in France in the Nineties. In: Célestin, R., DalMolin, E., de Courtivron, I. (eds) Beyond French Feminisms. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-09514-5_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-09514-5_14
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