Title: Africa wo/man palava
First published: 1996
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.
Subjects: History and criticism, Women authors, Women and literature, Women in literature, Nigerian fiction (English), Fiction (fictional works by one author)
Places: Nigeria
LC classification: PR9387.4 .O38 1996