States of emergence

Writing African female same-sex sexuality

Dados Bibliográficos

ID12458993
AutoresBrenna M Munro, Brenna Munro (University of Miami, autor correspondente)
Ano2016
Volume21
Fascículo2
Páginas186-203
Data de publicação2016-09-07
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Lesbian Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1089-4160 • E-ISSN: 1540-3548
EditoraTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10894160.2016.1148471
PMID27604054
OpenAlexW2509349825
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas9
Referências citadas6

Tracing a series of intertextually linked short stories from the 1990s to the present by women writers from Nigeria and its diaspora-Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Unoma Azuah, Chinelo Okparanta, and Lola Shoneyin-I suggest that although the figure of the African lesbian appears "new" in the context of heightened contemporary attention to the issue of homosexuality, this figure has a literary history. Ghanaian Ama Ata Aidoo's novel Our Sister Killjoy: Or, Reflections From A Black-Eyed Squint (1977) inaugurates this formation, in which the imagining of female same-sex desire is entangled with articulating the experience of migration under the shadow of imperial histories. In these short stories, the emphasis on the difficulties of love in puritanical times and transnational places produces the figure of the African lesbian as a symbol of appealingly human vulnerability, resilience, and complexity

Female sex · Human sexuality · Same sex · Sociology · African history and culture studies · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues · Gender Studies · LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy · Medicine · Psychology