African 'herstory': the feminist reader and the African autobiographical voice

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Periodical article

Title:	African 'herstory': the feminist reader and the African autobiographical voice
Author:	Hitchcott, Nicki
Year:	1997
Periodical:	Research in African Literatures
Volume:	28
Issue:	2
Pages:	16-33
Language:	English
Geographic term:	West Africa
Subjects:	women literature autobiography
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/3820441
Abstract:	Through an analysis of the construction of the female self within the narrative, the author discusses the ways in which three African texts rewrite the traditionally male, bourgeois genre of autobiography, and the extent to which they correspond to the structures and ideologies of feminist autobiography or confession. The texts discussed are 'Femme d'Afrique'(1975) by Aoua Kéita (Mali), 'Le baobab fou' (1984), by Ken Bugul (a pseudonym; Senegal), and 'De Tilène au Plateau' (1975), by Nafissatou Diallo (Senegal). In spite of the much cited equation of feminism and individualism, the concept of feminist confession in these three texts suggests a reformation of the autobiographical narrative, based on a recognition of the individual self as a component of a much larger, collective identity. In particular 'Le baobab fou' recognizes feminism as a call for solidarity and not, as is traditionally maintained in Africa, for the promotion of the individual. Bibliogr., notes, ref.