Africa wo/man palava
Subtitle: the Nigerian novel by women
By: Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi.
Series: Women in culture and society
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Chicago
Language: eng
Number of pages: 353
Subjects: Nigerian fiction (English) -- Women authors -- History and criticism; Women and literature -- Nigeria; Women in literature
Description: Africa Wo/Man Palava offers the first close look at eight Nigerian women writers and 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 emphasizing motherhood, is at the heart of their writing.

In their work, female resistance shifts from the idea of palava, or trouble, to consensus, compromise, complementarity, and cooperation; it tackles sexism, totalitarianism, and ethnic prejudice.

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 postcolonial woman in the novels and in society at large. Ogunyemi tracks this figure through many permutations, from matriarch to writer, her multiple personalities reflecting competing loyalties.

This sustained critical study counters prevailing "masculinist" theories of black literature in a powerful narrative of the Nigerian world.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.