Violence in Francophone African and Caribbean Women's Literature

by Marie-Chantal Kalisa

Overview

African and Caribbean peoples share a history dominated by the violent disruptions of slavery and colonialism. While much has been said about these “geographies of pain,” violence in the private sphere, particularly gendered violence, receives little attention. This book fills that void. It is a critical addition to the study of African and Caribbean women’s literatures at a time when women from these regions are actively engaged in articulating the ways in which colonial and postcolonial violence impact women.
 
Chantal Kalisa examines the ways in which women writers lift taboos imposed on them by their society and culture and challenge readers with their unique perspectives on violence. Comparing women from different places and times, Kalisa treats types of violence such as colonial, familial, linguistic, and war-related, specifically linked to dictatorship and genocide. She examines Caribbean writers Michele Lacrosil, Simone Schwartz-Bart, Gisèle Pineau, and Edwidge Danticat, and Africans Ken Begul, Calixthe Beyala, Nadine Bar, and Monique Ilboudo. She also includes Sembène Ousmane and Frantz Fanon for their unique contributions to the questions of violence and gender. This study advances our understanding of the attempts of African and Caribbean women writers to resolve the tension between external forms of violence and internal forms resulting from skewed cultural, social, and political rules based on gender.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780803226883
Publisher:	University of Nebraska Press
Publication date:	12/01/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	277 KB

About the Author

Chantal Kalisa is an associate professor of francophone studies in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures and in the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. She is a coeditor of a book in French on the Rwandan genocide.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Geographies of Pain  

1. Exclusion as Violence: Frantz Fanon, Black Women, and Colonial Violence   

2. Representing Colonial Violence: Michèle Lacrosil’s Cajou, Ken Bugul’s Le baobab fou, and Ousmane Sembène’s La noire de . . .

3. Writing Familial Violence: Storytelling and Intergenerational Violence in Simone Schwarz-Bart’s Pluie et vent sur Télumée Miracle and Calixthe Beyala’s Tu t’appelleras Tanga     

4. Sites of Violence: Language, the Body, and Women’s Deterritorialization in Gisèle Pineau’s L’espérance-macadam and Calixthe Beyala’s C’est le soleil qui m’a brûlée     

5. War and Political Violence: Nadine Bari’s, Edwidge Danticat’s, and Monique Ilboudo’s Literary Responses to Gender and Conflict

Conclusion 

Notes

Works Cited

Index

 

Editorial Reviews

"This study advances our understanding of the attempts of African and Caribbean women writers to resolve the tension between external forms of violence and internal forms resulting from skewed cultural, social, and political rules based on gender."—African Affairs

African Affairs

"Including an excellent bibliography, this is an important work in literary and gender studies."—A. J. Guillaume Jr., Choice

Choice - A. J. Guillaume

"Kalisa's analysis of gendered violence is a persuasive and timely study of violence in francophone African and Caribbean literature. It is a significant contribution to the field of women studies and is of interest to any gender theorist, postcolonial specialist, and Africana scholar."—Cheikh Thiam, Research in African Literatures

Research in African Literatures - Cheikh Thiam

"Kalisa’s analysis of gendered violence is a persuasive and timely study of violence in francophone African and Caribbean literature. It is a significant contribution to the field of women studies and is of interest to any gender theorist, postcolonial specialist, and Africana scholar."—Cheikh Thiam, Research in African Literatures

— Cheikh Thiam

Research in African Literatures

"Including an excellent bibliography, this is an important work in literary and gender studies."—A. J. Guillaume Jr., Choice

— A. J. Guillaume

Choice