AFRICAN FEMINISM AND POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN SHORT STORIES BY ZIMBABWE WOMEN WRITERS.

Author

Christivel Clara Zulu, Southern Illinois University CarbondaleFollow

Date of Award

5-1-2024

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

English

First Advisor

Fox, Robert

Abstract

This study examines short stories from various Zimbabwe women writers and explores how these stories depict the socioeconomic and political status of women in postcolonial Zimbabwe. I argue that storytelling is truth-telling, as shown by the analysis of the stories. Through political consciousness and African feminism, the women writers use various shifting narrators as a strategy of presenting the ongoing struggles of corruption, domestic violence, mental health issues, HIV/ AIDS, rape, bad governance, and other ongoing struggles in Zimbabwe. Petina Gappah’s An Elegy of Easterly is a story collection that helps the reader to understand the social context in which women are oppressed and exploited in postcolonial Zimbabwe. Similarly, Irene Stauton’s Women Writing Zimbabwe, Tsitsi Nomsa Ngwenya’s The Fifty Rand Note and Other Short Stories, and Samantha Rumbidzai Vhazure’s Turquoise Dreams Anthology of Short Stories focus on fighting for women’s rights and human rights through writing. Political activists are silenced through persecutions and abductions, so to avoid such consequences, fiction is used for political activism. The sociocentric notion that women are only fighting against their oppression and exploitation is now outdated as 21st century women writers are also political analysts who are fighting bad governance and corruption, which means they are advocating for the society at large.