Description
Book SynopsisChallenging the notion that Africas first women novelists were uninterested in postcolonial politics, Susan Z. Andrade shows that in their allegorical fiction, the family stood for the nation.
Trade Review“In her discussion of postindependence fiction (which includes texts published in both English and French), Andrade complicates a dominant story that still widely informs understandings of the development of African fiction.” - Heather Hewett,
Women’s Review of Books“In
The Nation Writ Small: African Fictions and Feminisms, 1958–1988, Susan Andrade mounts a strong argument for reading African fiction by women (with honourable mention of male feminist authors) along a matrilineal line A phrase of Christopher Ouma’s – “heirs of a new genealogy” (103) – can be taken to sum up this worthwhile collection’s celebration and critical re-evaluation of the Achebean legacy.” - Annie Gagiano,
Journal of Postcolonial Writing“[
The Nation Writ Small] is clearly argued and theoretically ambitious, aiming to place feminist literature (by male and female authors) within the conversation about nationalist politics that dominated the field in the years immediately following independence.” - Eleni Coundouriotis,
Research in African Literatures“The debates in which
The Nation Writ Small aims to intercede, therefore, are both internal to African literary studies and germane to the ways in which the field represents itself to the outside world. It is here at the difficult intersection of internal debates and external perception that
The Nation Writ Small will be of interest to scholars of a variety of literatures of the Global South.” - Magalí Armillas-Tiseyra,
Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East“
The Nation Writ Small is a brilliant work, feminist and literary scholarship of the highest order. It is a superb reading of the relationship between gender and nationalism in postcolonial African literature and culture, based on Susan Z. Andrade’s deep knowledge of African texts and cultural politics.”—
Simon Gikandi, Princeton University
“Susan Z. Andrade brings new levels of nuance and complexity to bear on issues that have preoccupied, if not obsessed, readers of African women writers: Are they feminist? And are they nationalist? Andrade dismantles these questions, studies their component parts, and reassembles them with finesse and insight.”—
Christopher L. Miller, author of
The French Atlantic Triangle: Literature and Culture of the Slave Trade“[
The Nation Writ Small] is clearly argued and theoretically ambitious, aiming to place feminist literature (by male and female authors) within the conversation about nationalist politics that dominated the field in the years immediately following independence.” -- Eleni Coundouriotis * Research in African Literatures *
“In
The Nation Writ Small: African Fictions and Feminisms, 1958–1988, Susan Andrade mounts a strong argument for reading African fiction by women (with honourable mention of male feminist authors) along a matrilineal line A phrase of Christopher Ouma’s – “heirs of a new genealogy” (103) – can be taken to sum up this worthwhile collection’s celebration and critical re-evaluation of the Achebean legacy.” -- Annie Gagiano * Journal of Postcolonial Writing *
“In her discussion of postindependence fiction (which includes texts published in both English and French), Andrade complicates a dominant story that still widely informs understandings of the development of African fiction.” -- Heather Hewett, * Women's Review of Books *
"
The Nation Writ Small illustrates the enriched forms of literary scholarship that can emerge when we read simultaneously for form and theme while continuously verifying these analytical objects against the historiography of the respective literary tradition." -- Monica Popescu * Novel *
"The
Nation Writ Small is retrospective feminist literary historiography at its best, and certainly at its most elegant.... Andrade is a must-have for any library with holdings in Africana and comparative literature, and should be essential reading for anybody studying and teaching African literatures. But before this sounds like yet another literary chore:
The Nation Writ Small simply makes for great reading." -- Christine Matzke * Postcolonial Text *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
1. The Joys of Daughterhood:
Achebe, Nwapa, Emecheta 44
2. The Loved and the Left:
Sembne, Bâ, Sow Fall 71
3. Bildung in Formation and Deformation:
Dangarembga and Farah 114
4. Bildung at Its Boundaries:
Djebar, Two Ways 165
Conclusion 202
Selected Chronology of African Novels 209
Notes 213
References 239
Index 253
