Table of Contents

Acknowledgements -- INTRODUCTION: Exclusionary practices -- I Aspects of the male literary tradition -- 1 HOW COULD THINGS FALL APART FOR WHOM THEY WERE NOT TOGETHER? -- 2 THE MOTHER AFRICA TROPE -- II Room for women -- 3 MEN FALL APART: Grace Ogot's novels and short stories -- 4 FLORA NWAPA AND THE FEMALE NOVEL OF DEVELOPMENT -- 5 'THEIR NEW SISTER': Buchi Emecheta and the contemporary African literary tradition -- 6 'LITERATURE AS A ... WEAPON': The novels of Mariama Ba -- III Men write back -- 7 GENDER ON THE AGENDA: Novels of the 1980s by Ngiigi and Achebe -- CONCLUSION: Redefining the African literary tradition -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.

About the Author

Florence Stratton received a Ph.D. in African Literature from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. She taught literature at Njala University College in Sierra Leone for nineteen years and is currently at the Catholic Worker in New York.