Awakening African Women: The Dynamics of Change

The book is a comparative analysis of recent films by African male and female filmmakers and literary works by female African authors from Senegal, Mali, the Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Togo and Burkina Faso. The films are Finzan (Cheikh Oumar Sissoko, 1990), Women with Open Eyes (Anne-Laure Folly, 1994), and Faces of Women (Desire Ecare, 1985). In addition, the manuscript includes the study of Women are Different (Flora Nwapa, 1986), Double Yoke (Buchi Emecheta, 1983) and So Long a Letter (Mariama Ba, 1980). Curry analyzes the homogeneous themes such as oppression, sabotage, cultural alienation, exploitation, sexual bargaining and the changing dynamics of sexual relationships that appear through these productions. She concludes that African women continue to undergo a metamorphosis. This transformation is the result of a blend of traditionally African and European influences.Modernist terms such as feminism and womanism intended to capture the emerging African women as subjects and not objects of study, are avoided. In so doing, a theoretical approach is used, based on the author s own experiences in West Africa. Then, building from that premise, Curry analyzes the novels and films within this context to either prove or disprove her theories. Enthusiasts without past experiences in the area of African literature and African films, and also students and scholars in African studies, specifically in comparative literature, anthropology, women s studies, sociology, African history, film studies and social studies, will all find this book of great interest. In raising the issues that West African women face, this book, as the title suggests, aims to awaken other African women and indeed a 'western' readership to the fast changing lives of women in Africa. Georgina Holmes in African Research and Documentation No. 102, 2007