THE AESTHETICS OF PERVERSION: BLACK WOMEN’S QUEST FOR NEW SPACES OF REPRESENTATION
Abstract
Up till recently, African literature has preoccupied itself largely with the burning political issues of the day: colonialism, post-colonialism, nationalism and post-independence political gimmickry. Issues related to sexuality have been enshrouded in too many silences. The situation is compounded by the heritage of the oral tradition: the traditional pre-colonial African societies tented to subject issues related to human sexuality to stern taboo laws. However, African women’s literature, due to the radical militancy that presently rages and pervades all its nooks and cranny, has broken the silence by focusing on inversion as a central thematic concern. The theme of sapphism functions within the context of other numerous taboo themes that are found in present-day African women’s literature passim such as pedophilia, child sexual/commercial exploitation, incestuous rape, sexist necrophilia, among many others. This paper seeks to investigate the emergence of the theme of sapphism in Calixthe Beyala’s fiction, the new avenues afforded by it, and how it has pushed the boundaries of African women’s literature. It reveals that the woman’s treatment of this theme marks her conscious attempt to open up new spaces or ways of representation in African literature in a bid to chart the path toward what may be hazarded as a new literary canon.
Downloads
References
Afah-Abbenyi, Juliana Makuchi. Gender in African Women’s Writing : Identity, Sexuality
and Difference. Bloomington and Indianapolis : Indiana University Press, 1997.
Alexander, Flora. Contemporary Women Novelists. London : Edward Arnold, 1989.
Angelou, Maya. The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou. New York : Random House, 1994.
Beyala, Calixthe. C’est le soleil qui m’a brûlée. Paris : Stock, 1987.
Beyala, Calixthe. Tu t’appelleras Tanga. Paris, Stock, 1988.
Beyala, Calixthe. Seul le diable le savait. Paris, Pré-aux-Clercs, 1980.
Beyala, Calixthe. Le petit Prince de Belleville, Paris, Albin Michel, 1992.
Beyala, Calixthe. Maman a un amant. Paris : Albin Michel, 1993.
Beyala, Calixthe. Assèze l’Africaine. Paris : Albin Michel, 1995.
Beyala, Calixthe. Lettre d’une Africaine à ses sœurs occidentales, Paris : Spinglers, 1995.
Beyala, Calixthe. Les Honneurs perdus. Paris : Albin Michel, 1996.
Beyala, Calixthe. La Petite fille du rèverbère. Paris : Albin Michel, 1998.
Beyala, Calixthe. Comment cuisiner son mari à l’Africain. Paris : Albin Michel 2000.
Bjornson, Richard. The African Quest for Freedom and Identity : Cameroon Writing and
the National Experience, Bloomington and Indianapolis : Indiana University Press, 1991.
Gallimore, Béatrice Rangira. L’œuvre romanesque de Calixthe Beyala : le renouveau de
L’écriture féminine en Afrique francophone sub-sahérienne. Paris : L’harmattan, 1997.
Gordon, Linda. Woman’s Body, Woman’s Rights. New York : Penguin Books, 1990.
Mainimo, Wirba Ibrahim. « Sexual/Textual politics : Alice Walker and Calixthe Beyala » Doctorate Diss, University of Yaounde 1, 1998.
Mainimo, Wirba Ibrahim. « From Perversion to Pervasion : Calixthe Beyala and the
Aesthetics of Sapphism « Upcoming in « the Feminist Review », University of North London, United Kingdom.
Ogundipe-Leslie, Molara. « Introduction » in Davis Carole Beyce and Anne Adams, eds.,
Moving Beyond Boundaries : Black Women’s Diasporas. New York : Oxford University Press, 1995.
Tate, Claudia. Black Women Writers at Work. New York : Continuum Publishing, 1983.
Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. New York : H-B. J., 1982.
Walker, Alice. Possessing The Secret of Joy. New York : HBJ, 1993.
Copyright (c) 2019 IJRDO - Journal of Educational Research (ISSN: 2456-2947)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Author(s) and co-author(s) jointly and severally represent and warrant that the Article is original with the author(s) and does not infringe any copyright or violate any other right of any third parties, and that the Article has not been published elsewhere. Author(s) agree to the terms that the IJRDO Journal will have the full right to remove the published article on any misconduct found in the published article.
