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The Fury and Cries of Women (CARAF Books: Caribbean and African Literature translated from the French)
Angèle Rawiri
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Description for The Fury and Cries of Women (CARAF Books: Caribbean and African Literature translated from the French)
Paperback. Translator(s): Hanaburgh, Sara. Series: CARAF Books: Caribbean and African Literature Translated from French. Num Pages: 224 pages. BIC Classification: FA; FYT. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 216 x 140 x 10. Weight in Grams: 272.
Gabon’s first female novelist, Angèle Rawiri probed deeper into the issues that writers a generation before her—Mariama Bâ and Aminata Sow Fall—had begun to address. Translated by Sara Hanaburgh, this third novel of the three Rawiri published is considered the richest of her fictional prose. It offers a gripping account of a modern woman, Emilienne, who questions traditional values and seeks emancipation from them.
Emilienne’s active search for feminism on her own terms is tangled up with cultural expectations and taboos of motherhood, marriage, polygamy, divorce, and passion. She completes her university studies in Paris; marries a man from a rival ethnic group; becomes a leader in women’s liberation; enjoys professional success, even earning more than her husband; and eventually takes a female lover. Yet still she remains unsatisfied. Those closest to her, and even she herself, constantly question her role as woman, wife, mother, and lover. The tragic death of her only child—her daughter Rékia—accentuates Emilienne’s anguish, all the more so because of her subsequent barrenness and the pressure that she concede to her husband’s taking a second wife.
In her forceful portrayal of one woman’s life in Central Africa in the late 1980s, Rawiri prompts us not only to reconsider our notions of African feminism and the canon of francophone African women’s writing but also to expand our awareness of the issues women face across the world today in the workforce, in the bedroom, and among family and peers.
Emilienne’s active search for feminism on her own terms is tangled up with cultural expectations and taboos of motherhood, marriage, polygamy, divorce, and passion. She completes her university studies in Paris; marries a man from a rival ethnic group; becomes a leader in women’s liberation; enjoys professional success, even earning more than her husband; and eventually takes a female lover. Yet still she remains unsatisfied. Those closest to her, and even she herself, constantly question her role as woman, wife, mother, and lover. The tragic death of her only child—her daughter Rékia—accentuates Emilienne’s anguish, all the more so because of her subsequent barrenness and the pressure that she concede to her husband’s taking a second wife.
In her forceful portrayal of one woman’s life in Central Africa in the late 1980s, Rawiri prompts us not only to reconsider our notions of African feminism and the canon of francophone African women’s writing but also to expand our awareness of the issues women face across the world today in the workforce, in the bedroom, and among family and peers.
Product Details
Format
Paperback
Publication date
2014
Publisher
University of Virginia Press
Condition
New
Series
CARAF Books: Caribbean and African Literature Translated from French
Number of Pages
224
Place of Publication
Charlottesville, United States
ISBN
9780813936031
SKU
V9780813936031
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 15 to 20 working days
Ref
99-20
About Angèle Rawiri
Angèle Rawiri (1954–2010) was a translator, interpreter, model, and actress in addition to being a novelist. Her death in Paris reinvigorated interest in her work and dismay that she had not known greater success during her lifetime. Sara Hanaburgh is Assistant Professor of French at St. John’s University, USA. Cheryl Toman is Associate Professor of French at. Case Western Reserve University, USA.
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