Sindiwe Magona and the Power of Paradox

Sindiwe Magona and the Power of Paradox

Author: Renée Schatteman

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-04-23

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 1040020216

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This book examines the work of Sindiwe Magona, one of South Africa’s most prolific and groundbreaking writers, widely recognized for highlighting the everyday experiences of women and the domestic side of apartheid. A pioneer among black African women writers, she is equally respected as storyteller, advocate for children’s education, activist for HIV/AIDS awareness, and champion of indigenous languages. In this book, Renée Schatteman contends that Magona’s most important contribution comes through her refusal to choose sides in the contentious debates that have polarized public discourse following apartheid. By straddling two (or more) sides of a controversy and challenging any who do harm to others (and to the nation), regardless of their position, she blurs distinctions that are assumed to be absolute, opens new avenues of understanding, and inspires alternative visions for the future. By occupying the space of paradox, she undermines the closed epistemological structures inherited from apartheid and champions the need for interdependence, truth-telling, and dialogue. Covering her creative production over three decades (which includes novels, autobiographies and biographies, short story collections, children’s books, and literature about HIV/AIDS), this book is an essential read for Magona enthusiasts as well as for researchers of African literature and postcolonial South Africa.


Sindiwe Magona and the Power of Paradox

Sindiwe Magona and the Power of Paradox

Author: Renée Schatteman

Publisher:

Published: 2024

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781003456612

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"This book examines the work of Sindiwe Magona, one of South Africa's most prolific and ground-breaking writers, widely recognised for highlighting the everyday experiences of women and the domestic side of apartheid. A pioneer among black African women writers, she is equally respected as storyteller, advocate for children's education, activist for HIV/AIDS awareness, and champion of indigenous languages. In this book, Renée Schatteman contends that Magona's most important contribution comes through her refusal to choose sides in the contentious debates that have polarized public discourse following apartheid. By straddling two (or more) sides of a controversy and challenging any who do harm to others (and to the nation), regardless of their position, she blurs distinctions that are assumed to be absolute, opens new avenues of understanding, and inspires alternative visions for the future. By occupying the space of paradox, she undermines the closed epistemological structures inherited from apartheid and champions the need for interdependence, truth-telling, and dialogue. Covering her creative production over three decades (which includes novels, autobiographies and biographies, short story collections, children's books, and literature about HIV/AIDS), this book is an essential read for Magona enthusiasts as well as for researchers of African literature and postcolonial South Africa"--


Insidious Trauma in Eastern African Literatures and Cultures

Insidious Trauma in Eastern African Literatures and Cultures

Author: Norman Saadi Nikro

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-07-15

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 104008673X

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This book investigates the thematic and conceptual dimensions of insidious trauma in contemporary eastern African literatures and cultural productions. The book extends our understanding of trauma beyond people’s immediate and conventional experiences of disastrous events and incidents, instead considering how trauma is sustained in the aftermaths, continuing to impact livelihoods, and familial, social, and gender relationships. Drawing on different circumstances and experiences across and between the eastern African region, the book explores how emerging cultural practices involve varying modes of narrating, representing, and thematising insidious trauma. In doing so, the book considers different forms and practices of cultural production, including fashion, social media, film, and literature, in order to uncover how human subjects and cultural artefacts circulate through modalities of social, cultural and political ecologies. Transdisciplinary in scope and showcasing the work of experts from across the region, this book will be an important guide for researchers across literature, media studies, sociology, and trauma studies.


Time and Nature in the Poetry of Niyi Osundare

Time and Nature in the Poetry of Niyi Osundare

Author: Chukwunwike Anolue

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-08-02

Total Pages: 203

ISBN-13: 1040087817

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This book provides an ecocritical analysis of the poetry of the famous Nigerian poet Niyi Osundare. It interrogates the intricate interface between time and nature in 11 of Osundare’s defining poetry collections. This is a book of postcolonial ecocriticism from an African perspective. It brings together the ecocritical theory of animism and theories of geologic time in the discussion of Osundare’s poetry. Osundare shows that animism has a lot to offer in enriching human understanding of the ecosystem. And while he eloquently catalogues problems undermining the health of the earth in this age of the Anthropocene and the Capitalocene in his poetry, he also holds on to the hope of a better future. The book concludes that Osundare’s optimism is what informs his use of poetry to press humankind to rise to the duty of salvaging the environment. Deploying an interdisciplinary approach that stretches across the fields of literature, religion, geology, physics, economics, and anthropology, this book will be an important read for those looking for fresh ways to understand Osundare’s poetry and African nature writing.


The Swahili Novels of Tanzanian Women

The Swahili Novels of Tanzanian Women

Author: Izabela Romańczuk

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-09-11

Total Pages: 138

ISBN-13: 104013159X

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This book provides a rich and full analysis of female Swahili novelists from a feminist perspective, highlighting their important contributions to the living Swahili literary and intellectual tradition. Compared to the diverse and centuries-old oral literature, or religious-philosophical poetry tradition developing since at least the 17th century, the novel is a relatively young phenomenon in the rich body of Swahili literary output, emerging only in the last hundred years. Since then, academia has focused primarily on male novelists, largely disregarding important female writers such as Ndyanao Balisidya, Zainab Burhani, Martha Mvungi Mlangala, Zainab Mwanga, Lucy Nyasulu, and Zainab Alwi Baharoon. This book traces the evolution of women’s writing in Tanzania, highlighting emancipatory and feminist discourses, as well as intersectional themes of class, education, and urbanisation. The author demonstrates how concepts such as utu 'the essence of humanity', aibu 'shame', 'disgrace' and heshima 'honor', 'social respectability' are used in the novels to articulate the value systems and social norms in Swahili communities, including the gendered perceptions of women that they create. Grounded throughout in the historical and socio-political contexts of the authors it discusses, this book will be an important read for researchers of African literature and women’s studies.


Magical Realism in Africa

Magical Realism in Africa

Author: Sarali Gintsburg

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-10-14

Total Pages: 213

ISBN-13: 1040155286

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Magical realism has deep roots across many African languages and regions. This book explores African magical realism from a transregional and inclusive approach, drawing on contributions from different literary genres across the continent. The chapters in this book constitute a sustained and insightful reflection on the salient components of this literary genre as well as evaluating its connections to themes of conflict, violence, women’s rights, trauma, oppression, culture, governance, and connecting to the African self. As well as theorizing magical realism, this book engages with African expressive performance across various formats, novels, plays, and films. This book investigates African magical realism from its origins up to the present day, where local oral traditions link indigenous cosmogonic stories with Western literature, as well as with the specific narrative traditions of Arabo‐Islamic literature. The rich analysis draws on works from across the continent, including Egypt, Sudan, Mauritania, Cameroon, Kenya, Tanzania, Angola, and Mozambique. This book is a timely contribution to debates within African literature, cultural anthropology, ethnography, and folklore.


Mother to Mother

Mother to Mother

Author: Sindiwe Magona

Publisher: Beacon Press

Published: 2022-08-23

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 0807007129

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A searing novel, told in letter form, that explores the South African legacy of apartheid through the lens of a woman whose Black son has just murdered a white woman Mother to Mother is a novel with depth, at once an emotional plea for compassion and understanding, and a sharp look at the impacts of colonialism and apartheid on South African families. Inspired by the true story of Fulbright scholar Amy Biehl's murder, the book takes the form of a letter to the victim’s mother. The murderer’s mother, Mandisa, speaks of a life marked by oppression and injustice. Through her writing, Mandisa reveals a colonized society that not only allowed but perpetuated violence against women and impoverished Black South Africans under the reign of apartheid. This book is not an apology for the murder but rather something more. It seeks to connect, through empathy and storytelling, one pained mother with another who is grief-stricken and in mourning. A beautifully written exploration of the society that bred such violence, Mother to Mother will resonate with readers interested in understanding and ending racial injustice, as well as the lasting colonial foundations of oppression.


African Literature, Animism and Politics

African Literature, Animism and Politics

Author: Caroline Rooney

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2004-01-14

Total Pages: 255

ISBN-13: 1134558856

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This book marks an important contribution to colonial and postcolonial studies in its clarification of the African discourse of consciousness and its far-reaching analyses of a literature of animism. It will be of great interest to scholars in many fields including literary and critical theory, philosophy, anthropology, politics and psychoanalysis.


Real and Imagined Women

Real and Imagined Women

Author: Rajeswari Sunder Rajan

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2003-09-02

Total Pages: 157

ISBN-13: 1134886527

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First published in 1993. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.


The Power of Paradox

The Power of Paradox

Author: Markus Locker

Publisher: Brill

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9789004398221

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In this book, Markus Locker demonstrates that the paradox behind each truth claim opens a channel of communication of truths.