Canonising our daughters
T HIS  has  at  least

Aderemi  Raji-Oyelade

Chifcwenye O. Ogunyemi, AFRICAN WO/MAN
PALAVA: THE NIGERIAN NOVEL BY WOMEN.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago &
London,  1996, xiii + 353 pp.

However,  the  unmistakable
resonance  of major  terms  of
mainstream  black  literary
theory is suppressed  to a sec-
ond echo by Ogunyemi's origi-
nal  weaving  of  a  Nigerian
womanist canon which essen-
tially figures states of woman-
hood or motherhood in culture
as a symbolic means of under-
standing and interpreting our
world.

African  Wo I Man  Palava
challenges  the  chauvinist
strategies of reading the Afri-
can novel in which female figu-
ration  is typically  realised a,s
goddess, mammywatta, prosti-
tute, temptress, pariah or out-
cast,  or  evil  beauty  genie;  it
challenges the phallogocentric
male-dominated literary tradi-
tion;  and  ultimately,  the  text
channels a radical and restor-
ative reception of female writ-
ing  (portraiture)  within  the
broad  canon of African  litera-
ture.

Central  to this  reading of
female  experience  is  the con-
cept of womanism (apparently
preferred  to the more restric-
tive  and  provincial  idea  of
Western  feminism)  which
emphasised  understanding
sexist  relationships  -  affilia-
tion  rather  than  separatism,
equity rather than domination,
and dialogue rather than divi-
sion. Ogunyemi pragmatically
conceives of African womanism
as a 'mother-centred  ideology,
with its focus on caring - famil-
ial,  communal,  national,  and
international'(114). Thus, part
of Ogunyemi's  avowed propo-
sitions is to claim equal space

in 

and  opportunity 
the
horizontality  of the  literary
scene,  an  insistence  on  the
acknowledgement  of women
writing as the more objective,
the  'other' voice which com-
pletes the tenor of human ex-
perience and literary expres-
sion (... stories, left untold or
hitherto distastefully  told by
men,  now set down in writing
to counter the ephemeral na-
ture  of  women's  traditional
orature, p.4).

The grounding metaphors
of kwenu  and  aso ebi,  used
as  title  headings  of the  two
sections  of this  book,  are  a
projection of the communality
and filiation, the commonal-
ity and collective association
of female experience in tradi-
tional  and  modern  Nigerian
society. The details  of living
may differ, but there seems to
be  a  parallel,  embroidered
(textual-textile)  pattern  in
the African  woman's experi-
ence. Also,  the  metaphor of
lappa,  earlier  employed  by
Anne Adams, is here deployed
to  describe  the  multiplicity
and  commonplaceness  of fe-
male function  and existence.
In  the  main, Africa  Wo I
Ma  Palava  historicizes  and
defines  the  nature  and  con-
ception of female writing and
orature  in Africa;  it  chooses
as  focus  the  status  of  the
women-mother  goddess  in
popular  myths,  legends  and
folktales  as  well  as  stereo-
typed  (mis) conceptions  and
reception of the female figure
in  Nigerian  society;  and  it

ISSUE NUMBER  ONE*  1997

two  marks  of  dis
tinction to win the
attention of any se-
rious  student  of  contempo-
rary  Nigerian  literature,
women  and African  studies.
One, 
it is the first  sustained
book-length study of the tra-
dition  of the  Nigerian novel-
by women spanning twenty-
eight years (1966 -1994). Sec-
ond,  it  is  perhaps  the  most
significant  theory  of  narra-
tive  by  a  Nigerian  female
critic on the most  significant
theory  of narrative  by a Ni-
gerian  female  critic  on  the
novel  genre  to  date.  Up till
now,  Lloyd  W.  Brown's
Women  Writers in  Black Af-
rica  (1981)  and  Oladele
Taiwo's Female Novelists of
Modern Africa  (1984) have
been noted as standard  ref-
erence texts by readers of Af-
rican  women's  literature,
South  of Sahara.  These and
other  secondary  texts  are
mainly descriptive of feminist
or female  narrative  and his-
torical about the condition of
African  womenhood.

It  is  possible  to say  that
Ogunyemi  has  succeeded  in
mapping  'a  calendar  of fic-
tion', to use Hortense Spillers'
phrase, of a visible and as yet
developing tradition of the fe-
male literary discourse in Ni-
geria.  Ogunyemi's  project  is
both  derivative  and  subver-
sive. It is derivative because
the  idea  of  a  vernacular
theory  originally  belongs  to
the black critical repertoire of
Houston  A Baker  Jr.  while
the trope of'signifying' which
Ogunyemi  appropriates  so
dexterously,  is  central  to
Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s theo-
retical  project  in  The Signi-
fying Monkey (1988). It is sub-
versive because it reproduces
these 'masculinist' terms and
others  in  order  to  reprocess
them  for  a womanist cause.

B um  Supplement

8

•ISSUE NUMBER ONE*  1997

<<  unveils the theoretical basis of an African
womanist ideology with its intervening act
of palaver-palava. Most practically, Afru a
Wo I Man Palava  places eight Nigerian fe-
male writers and thirty novels in contem-
porary  perspective, the texts  as counter-
narratives which respond to their male pre-
decessors  and contemporaries.  These in-
clude the pioneering work of Flora Nwapa,
the 'juju fiction' of Adaora  Lily Ulasi, the
'been-to'  novels  of Funmilayo  Fakunle,
Ifeoma  Okoye, Zaynab Alkali, Eno Obong
and  Simi  Bedford.  Essentially,  the  new
writers are read as constructive  activists
in nation-building and their novels as nar-
ratives of nationhood.

The absence of one, if not two, remark-
able new female novelists in the develop-
ing literary  canon  cannot however be ig-
nored.  Omowunmi  Segun's  The Third
Dimple (1992), winner of the prose fiction
prize of the Association of Nigerian Authors
in  1991 and Mobolaji Adenubi's Splendid
(1995), winner of the more prestigious All-
Africa  Okigbo  Prize for Literature  and a
high contender for last year's Noma Award
could have enriched the palaver  sauce in

09.1

the same brief but insightful  manner that Martina
Nwakoby's A House Divided (1985) is treated.

Aderemi  Raji-Oyelade teaches fiction at the University of
Ibadan.

Women's voices,
Dynamic voices

Mary Modupe Kolawole

TO YIN  Adewale-Nduba & Omowunmi  Segun,
ed. BREAKING THE SILENCE, Lagos. The
Women Writers of Nigeria, 1996. 142 pages.

A T  a  time  when

many  observers
and  critics cry
out  that  the Ni-
gerian literary scene needs a
fresh vitality, new voices and
new  vision  have  been in-
jected  into our literary pro-
duction. The new anthology
of short stories Breaking the
Silence is a unique addition
to existing anthologies of Af-
rican  short  stories  and a
turning point in the nation's
literary  canon.  Its unique-
ness is revealed in the title
as  w*ll as the editors, two

emergent  female  talents and
the publishers, Women Writers
of Nigeria. It is a landmark in
diverse other ways. Since the
emergence  of women pioneers
in the 60s, the previously male
dominated  literary  scene has
revealed  the  quest  for femi-
nine self-expression. The first
generation  of women  writers
including  Flora  Nwapa, Zulu
Sofola,  Molara  Ogundipe-
Leslie and Mabel Segun have
progressively  attempted the
crusade  of self-assertion  to
bring to life the famous Yoruba
proverb, 'Owo ara eni la fi ntu

Okoye, 

iwa ara eni se.'A second gen-
eration followed in the steps
of their  precursors to  high-
light the female intervention
in  Nigerian 
literature.
Ifeoma 
Tess
Onwueme and Zaynab Alkali
punctuated  the  creative
arena  to 
continue  the
womanist tradition. The third
phase  of Nigerian  women's
writing has begun at a cru-
cial moment. With the death
of Nwapa  and Sofola,  some
critics are beginning to hold
their  breath  as they wonder
about  the  continuity  of
women's literary creativity in
Nigeria to fill the gaps.

Breaking the Silence is a
timely  assurance  both  in
terms of the collection of new,
young  and  undocumented
women writers and the image
and  scope of the anthology.
Apart from two contributors,
Mabel  Segun  and  Ifeoma
Okoye, the other  seventeen
writers  are relatively new
comers who made their debut
in the last few years. Indeed,
some of the stories  are the

eiendora  Book*  Supplement

9