The Twice Colonised : Women in African Literature

Contents: A different image : an introduction. I. African women and colonisation : a socio-historical perspective: 1. Women and colonisation. 2. Colonised African women. 3. Women in pre-colonial African societies. 4. African women and their role and status in the family: traditional and modern. 5. African women and economic independence. 6. Political roles. 7. Resistance to colonial oppression. 8. A second colonisation : women in post-colonial Africa. II. African women and colonial resistance in Sembene Ousmane\'s God\'s Bits of Wood. III. A second colonisation and female militancy: Buchi Emecheta\'s Destination Biafra. IV. Sexual/textual politics : the image of the sexually liberated "African woman" in Cyprian Ekwensi\'s Jagua Nana. V. Some say Matigari is a woman: subsuming gender in Ngugi Wa Thiongo\'s Matigari. VI. The double burden : marriage, motherhood and African women. Conclusion : The phoenix: awakening of the self. Bibliography. Topics-index. Title-index. Author-index.

"The present book is a significant contribution in the area of African feminist criticism. The study is both textual and contextual involving a close reading of texts together with an analysis which takes into consideration the world with which it has a material relationship, historical, social, economic and political. Importantly, it deals with those literary texts which recreate the African woman\'s refusal to accept the secondary status introduced by the white coloniser and perpetuated by the black man. Resistance offered by African women to political and cultural subjugation by colonial and neo-colonial forces, forms the central thesis of the Twice Colonised." (jacket)