Date: Wed, 17 Apr 1996 16:21:27 -0400 (EDT)
From: nwjohn00-AT-service1.uky.edu (nicola johnson)
Subject: postcolonial women--responses


Quite a few weeks ago, I requested input on a list of fiction and
autobiographies written by women in developing/postcolonial countries.  At
this point, I have a pretty mixed gathering of sources; the citations are
probably less than accurate--I haven't checked them yet.  However, since
many of you wanted to see the list and/or wanted more information on the
project, I decided to post what I've gotten so far.  I've left some of the
commentary in--I hope those of you who were kind enough to send me the
background info don't mind!

Thank you to all who have responded to me via the list or personally.  Your
input has been extremely valuable.  I'm currently auditing an
anthropology/sociology grad course on women and work in developing
countries, and the professor asked that I begin to gather a list of fiction
and autobiographies that she could use in future grad classes as well as in
undergrad sections.  My area is actually English lit (specializing in
English Renaissance and Irish lit in general), so these sources have
provided me with a wonderfully broad summer reading list!

Feel free to comment and/or add suggestions.


A Daughter of Mumbi (1969) --Charity Waciuma
Land Without Thunder (1968) --Grace Ogot
The Promised Land (1966) --Grace Ogot
Garden House (1988) --Eno Oblong
A Dakar Childhood (1975)  --Nafissatou Diallo
Drawn in Colour (1962) --Noni Jabauu
The Ochre People (1963) --Noni Jabauu
Call Me Woman (1985)  --Ellen Kuzwayo (South African, Ravan Press?)
Part of My Soul Went With Him (1985) --Winnie Mandela
Cross of Gold (1981) --Lauretta Ngcobo
Muriel at Metropolitan (1975) Miriam Tlali (South African, Ravan Press?)
Bridges in Time  --Laila Said
Letters to God  --Catherine Obianuju Acholonu
Behind the Clouds (1982) --Heoma Okoye
Men Without Ears (1984) --Heoma Okoye
The Stillborn (1984) --Zaynol Alkoli
The Virtuous Woman (1986) --Zaynol Alkoli
Pears From the Willow Tree (1989) --Violet Dias Lannoy
You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town (1987) --Zoe Wilcomb
Daughters of the Twilight (1986) --Farida Karodia
A Shattering of Silence --Farida Karodia
The Hidden Face of Eve --Nawal El Saadawi
Memoirs from the Women's Prison  --Nawal El Saadawi
Woman at Point Zero (1986) --Nawal El Saadawi
La Soit --Assia Djebar
Ombre Sultane --Assia Djebar
A House Without Roots --Andrea Chadio
The Promise --Iedida Asheri
Nisa:  The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman (1981) --Marjorie Shostak(ed/trans)
Three Swahili Women:  Life Histories from Mombasa, Kenya (1989)
        --Sarah Mirza and Margaret Strobel (ed/trans)
Baba of Kero:  A Woman of the Muslim Hausa (1954) --Mary F. Smith (ed/trans)
God's Bits of Wood (?) --novel (by a man?) about village women's support of
        a major railroad worker strike in colonial Senegal
works by Marcella Lagarde (anthropologist)
I, Rigoberta Menchu (autobiography)
autobiography of Frida Khalo (artist)
_Nervous Conditions_  --Tsitsi Dangarembga
_Meatless Days_   --Sara Suleri (autobio) (Pakistan)
_Annie John_, _An Autobiography of my mother_, _Lucy_,
_At the Bottom of the River_   --Jamaica Kincaid (Antigua)
_Abeng_ (autobiographical), _No Telephone to Heaven_,
        _Free Enterprise_   --Michelle Cliff (Jamaica)
_Myal_, _Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home_, _Louisiana_
        --Erna Brodber (Jamaica)
_The Joys of Motherhood_ (and other books) --Buchi Emecheta (Nigeria)
Our Sister Killjoy or Confessions of a Blackeyed Squint
        --Ama Ata Aidoo (Ghana)
 _Smile Please_ (autobiography) and _Wide Sargasso Sea_  --Jean Rhys
Strikes Have Followed Me All My Life  --Augustina Mashinini
No Child's Play  --Caesarina Kona Makhoere
Sketches from my Past:  Encounters with India's Oppressed,
        --Mahadeviarma, translated by Neera Kuckreja Sohoni,
        Northeastern U. Press, Boston,1994.
The Fire Sacrifice --Susham Bedi, Asian Writers Series,Heinemann,1993,
        translated by David Rubin.
Meatless Days --Sara Suleri, Univ. of Chicago Prewss,1989.
_Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers_  --Lois-Ann Yamanaka (about a
        Japanese-American girl growing up in Hawai`i. It forefronts class
        and is written in pidgin. Just came out this year.)
_Shark Dialogues_  --Kiana Davenport
_Tahuri_  --Ngahuia Te Awekotuku  (series of inter-related short stories about
        young girl growing up; issues of same-sex relationships, tourism)
_The House of the Talking Cat_  --J C Sturm  (early 20th-c short story writer;
        first - I think - Maori woman to get individual short stories published)
_the bone people_, _Te Kaihau/The Windeater_ (collection of short stories)
        --Keri Hulme (Booker Prize winner)
_Finding Ruth_ (Short stories) and _Willy Nilly_ (novel)
        --Renee (mostly known as playwright)
When Rain Clouds Gather (1969) --Bessie Head
Maru (1971) --Bessie Head
A Question of Power (1973) --Bessie Head

Bessie Head's THE COLLECTOR OF TREASURES, a collection of short stories
written by a South African black woman exiled to Botswana. You also might want
to read anything by Njabulo Ndebele.

Katherine Mansfield: her New Zealand stories, the most well-known of which
are "At the Bay" "The Doll's House" "The Woman at the Store" and "Prelude"

Patricia Grace: several novels and short story collections (first Maori
woman to publish a novel, and first to publish book of short stories).
_Potiki_ is maybe her best known novel (issues of land seizure and
development, integration of Maori mythology / customs into novel genre /
late 20th-c world), but if it's women you're interested in _Cousins_ (about
3 female cousins growing up) might be better.

Robin Hyde: 1920s and 30s, _The Godwits Fly_ is her autobio and the one most
libraries seem to have, but there's also some historical novels and her
fantasy women's text, _Wednesday's Children_ (normally read as a collection
of racist stereotypes, but I suspect that's from a conflation of Wednesday
with Hyde and that Hyde was consciously using the stereotypes for a purpose)

Jean Devanny: 1920s-1940s, NZ writer but most useful work is probably
_Cindie_ which she wrote after shifting to Australia - it deals with
Aboriginal (is it Koori up in Queensland?) issues in context of labour
relations on the sugar cane fields



OTHER IDEAS/SUGGESTIONS:


Perhaps the most productive thing would be to recommend that you consult
a source like the Encyclopedia of Postcolonial Literatures in English (pub
by Routledge? in 1994, I think).

_Women Writing in India_, a two-volume anthology published by the Feminist
Press and edited by Tharu and Lalita, is the consummate collection of
Indian women's writing in English translation. It is really quite good,
containing excerpts of fiction/poetry/autobiography, etc. from a variety of
Indian languages, and general information about the authors. I think it
is an important resource, especially considering that literature written
in vernacular languages is often ignored in favor of Indian literature
written in English (i.e. Anita Desai). Just off hand, one author whose
translated stories shouldn't be too hard to track down is Ismat Chugtai,
who wrote a controversial story named "The Quilt," which interestingly
contradicts the usual stereotypes of South Asian/women's literature with
its intimations of a lesbian relationship between two characters.

Look through collections of Hindi short stories (_Death in Delhi_ maybe?). Also,
Mahasweta Devi, whom Gayatri Spivak writes about, is available in English
translation.

There are quite a few life stories written by Australian Aboriginal women
which may be interesting to you (if you don't already know them) the most
obvious are "My Place" by Sally Morgan Fremantle Arts Centre Press - which
caused quite a sensation here and was one of the first in this genre, you
might also like to look at "Don't Take Your Love to Town" by Ruby Langford,
Penguin 1988.

There's a bunch of other writers who haven't  necessarily been pubd
individually in book form. Good collected sources would be _Into the World
of Light_  and _Te Ao Marama_ vols 1, 3, 5 (ed. Witi Ihimaera). Vol 3 of the
latter is esp. good for contemporary writing, and vol 5 is due out in March

Pakeha (settler - New Zealand) women writers*

*Pacific Island women writers*

After the 1930s all I can do for the most part is recite names as I don't
know the writing (shame): Elizabeth Knox, Barbara Anderson, Janet Frame (3
vol autobio starting with _ To the Is-Land_ (Made into the Jane Campion
film, _An Angel at My Table_) but _Owls Do Cry_ also quasi-autobio and
shorter), Frances Cherry (her _Dancing With Strings_ is hailed as the first
lesbian novel), Rachel McAlpine, Sue McCauley (_Other Halves_?, deals with
Maori-Pakeha relationship - supposed to be good), Lisa Greenwood . . .oh,
and _The Exploding Frangipani_ which is an NZ  (and Pacific Islands?)
lesbian anthology.

There's the _Oxford History of New Zealand Writing in English_ which might
be helpful (ed. Terry Sturm)

A good collected source would be _Nuanua: Pacific Writing in English Since
1980_ (ed. Albert Wendt) or his previous collection, _Lali_, which is the
first collection of PI writing in English

There's also a collection of Asia-Pacific lesbian writing - can't remember
the title exactly but if you plug "Asia-Pacific" and "lesbian" into the
library computer I'm sure you won't be too overwhelmed with titles. I
haven't looked at this except to note that the list of authors suggests that
the editors thought the Asia-Pacific region didn't stretch south past the
equator

The following suggestions are autobiographies or as I prefer to call them
'life stories' by Anglo-Celtic and Aboriginal writers:
Dorothy Hewitt _ Wildcard_ (Anglo-Celtic, Western Australian writer),  Beryl
Hackner a biography of Rosa Townsend  _Rosa_ (Anglo-Celtic Western
Australian woman), Ruby Langford Ginibi _Real Deadly_ and _My Bundjalung
People_ (Koori writer from New South Wales, and Alice Nannup _When the
Pelican Laughs_ (Aboriginal woman's story written with Lauren Marsh and
Stephen Kinnane).  These were all published in 1990s onwards.




THE FOLLOWING IS AN UNRELATED (20TH CENTURY US) COMPILATION A COLLEAGUE
PUT TOGETHER--YOU MAY FIND SOME INTERESTING THINGS HERE AS WELL:


ORIGINAL MESSAGE:  In response to the many requests I've had, here is the
list I've compiled of suggested autobiographies and memoirs, grouped by
race/ethnicity. To the best of my understanding, these are all non-fiction.
(I also did not include every suggestion, but focused on those that I
thought would work for my assignment (=20th century U.S.). Thanks to all
for your help.

I. African-American women

Maya Angelou. I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS. 1969.
Septima Clark. ECHO IN MY SOUL. 1962.
Evelyn Fairbanks. THE DAYS OF RONDO. 1990.
Mamie Fields. LEMON SWAMP AND OTHER PLACES. 1983.
Charlayne Hunter-Gault. IN MY PLACE. 1993.
Zora Neale Hurston. DUST TRACKS ON A ROAD. 1942.
Mary Mebane. MARY, WAYFARER. 1983.
Anne Moody. COMING OF AGE IN MISSISSIPPI. 1968.
Pauli Murray. SONG IN A WEARY THROAT (pap. AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BLACK
        ACTIVIST) 1987.
Itabari Njeri. EVERY GOOD-BYE AIN'T GONE. 1990.
Shirlee Taylor Haizlip. THE SWEETER THE JUICE. 1994.

II. Asian-American women

Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston. FAREWELL TO MANZANAR. 1973.
Maxine Hong Kingston. THE WOMAN WARRIOR. 1976.
Monica Sone. NISEI DAUGHTER. 1953.
Jade Snow Wong. FIFTH CHINESE DAUGHTER. 1950.

III. European-American women

Fay Ajzenber-Selove. A MATTER OF CHOICES. 1994. (physicist)
Florence Allen. TO DO JUSTLY. 1965. (first woman federal judge)
Mary Anderson. WOMAN AT WORK. 1951. (first dir. Women's Bureau)
Kim Chernin. IN MY MOTHER'S HOUSE. 1983.
Rose Cohen. OUT OF THE SHADOWS. 1995.
Anne Dillard. AN AMERICAN CHILDHOOD. 1987.
Anne Ellis. THE LIFE OF AN ORDINARY WOMAN. 1929. (mining/mountain life)
Rebekah Kohut. MY PORTION. 1925.
Charles Le Guin, ed. A HOME-CONCEALED WOMAN: THE DIARIES OF MAGNOLIA
        WYNNE LE GUIN, 1901-1913. 1990.
Katharine Lumpkin. THE MAKING OF A SOUTHERNER. 1946.
Faye Lewis. NOTHING TO MAKE A SHADOW. 1971.
Mary McCarthy. MEMORIES OF A CATHOLIC GIRLHOOD. 1957.
Margaret Mead. BLACKBERRY WINTER: MY EARLIER YEARS. 1972.
Joan Nestle. A RESTRICTED COUNTRY. 1987 (Lesbian)
Mary Canaga Rowland. AS LONG AS LIFE: THE MEMOIRS OF A FRONTIER WOMAN
        DOCTOR, 1873-1966. 1994.
Rose Schneiderman. ALL FOR ONE. 1967.
Virginia Sorensen. WHERE NOTHING IS LONG AGO: MEMORIES OF A MORMON
        CHILDHOOD. 1955.

IV. Hispanic women

Judith Ortiz Cofer. SILENT DANCING. 1990. (Puerto Rican)
Fabiola Cabeza de Baca Gilbert. WE FED THEM CACTUS. 1954. (New Mexico)
Cleofas Jaramillo. ROMANCE OF A LITTLE VILLAGE GIRL. 1955. (New Mexico)
Mary Helen Ponce. HOYT STREET: MEMORIES OF A CHICANA CHILDHOOD. 1993.
Esmeralda Santiago. WHEN WAS PUERTO RICAN. 1993.


V. Native American women

Mary Crow Dog. LAKOTA WOMAN. 1990.
Mourning Dog. MOURNING DOVE: A SALISHAN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 1990.
Wilma Mankiller. MANKILLER, A CHIEF AND HER PEOPLE. 1993.
Helen Sekaquaptewa. ME AND MINE. 1969. (Hopi)
Leslie Marmon Silko. STORYTELLER. 1981.
Irene Stewart. A VOICE IN HER TRIBE: A NAVAJO WOMAN'S OWN STORY. 1980.





Nicola Whelan Johnson
English Dept.
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY




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