Painful Entanglements: The International Debate on Female Genital Excision in African and African-American Literature
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Abstract
Painful Entanglements: The International Debate on Female Genital Excision in African and African-American Literature
This article demonstrates how, over the past four decades, African and African-American literary texts have engaged with the international debate on female genital excision. They never simply deal with the practice in its own right, but use it to explore broader socio-cultural issues, such as (de)colonization, national repression, misogyny, feminism, human rights, globalization. Far better than most non-fiction documents, they display just how multifaceted and challenging the issue is. They also give expression to the voices of African women, who have tended to be ignored in Western discussions on excision. Particular reference will be made to six novels, representative of three consecutive generations: The River Between (1965) by Ngugi wa Thiong’o (Kenya), Efuru (1966) by Flora Nwapa (Nigeria), The Circling Song (1976) by Nawal El Saadawi (Egypt), Sardines (1981) by Nuruddin Farah (Somalia), Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992) by Alice Walker (USA), and Rebelle (1998) by Fatou Keïta (Ivory Coast).