Body, Sexuality, and Gender: Versions and Subversions in African Literatures

Literary representations of the body from Africa as well as narrative strategies of writing the body have only recently begun to receive wider critical attention. The reflections on body, sexuality, and gender in African literary texts brought together in this volume do not consider these three terms as separate entities but instead as closely related to each other, each term questioning the other: bodies and sexualities that are transgressing concepts of gender, gender that is probing body and sexuality. With regard to Africa, the three concepts form a particularly contested space, because body and sexuality are not only subjected to power relations in terms of gender, but also in terms of race, ethnicity, and the legacy of colonialism. While the sections Gifted Bodies and Queered Bodies show new developments in viewing body and sexuality as creative powers, the sections Tainted Bodies and Violated Bodies comprise essays that investigate the exposure of the body to physical aggression and other traumatic experiences. Some of the authors treated in detail are: Ama Ata Aidoo, Mariama Ba, Calixthe Beyala, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Bessie Head, Sheila Kohler, Flora Nwapa, Promise Okekwe, Yvonne Vera; Andre Brink, J.M. Coetzee, K. Sello Duiker, Nuruddin Farah, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Dambudzo Marechera, Arthur Nortje, Ben Okri, Shamim Sarif, and Williams Sassine. Contributors: Akachi Adimora–Ezeigbo , Susan Arndt, Unoma N. Azuah , Elleke Boehmer, Monica Bungaro , Lucy Valerie Graham , Jessica Hemmings, Sigrid G. Kohler , Martina Kopf , Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi , Marion Pape , Robert Muponde , Sarah Nuttall , Drew Shaw , Alioune Sow , Cheryl Stobie , Alexie Tcheuyap