Gender and the Circulation of African Lusophone Literature into the Portuguese Literary System

Edfeldt, Chatarina

doi:10.16993/bat.ad

Cited by 3 publications

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“…Rather, just as in human societies and practices in general, gender functions in various ways and on different levels as a mediating category in the circulation processes of literature. Depending on the access to literacy, creative conditions, social status and critical (canonical and consecration) recognition of women in different societies and literary establishments, there could be many 'gatekeepers' to bypass on the path to wider circulation of their literature (Edfeldt 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Edfeldt¹,

Falk²,

Hedberg³

et al. 2022

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The four books in this limited series are an outcome of a major Swedish research project called 'Cosmopolitan-Vernacular Dynamics in World Literatures' , the aim of which has been to intervene -not least methodologically -in the current disciplinary development of world literature studies. The series is united by a common introductory chapter and approaches the vernacular in world literature across a range of fields, such as comparative literature, postcolonial literature and literary anthropology.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Northern Crossings

Edfeldt¹,

Falk²,

Hedberg³

et al. 2022

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Recoding Paulina Chiziane’S Vernacular Poetics

Edfeldt

2019

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This essay explores the gendered, geopolitical and material conditions of Mozambican literary migration into the contemporary Portuguese-speaking circuit, by paying special attention to the treatment of the internationally known writer Paulina Chiziane. More specifically, the essay addresses how vernacular features in Chiziane's literary expression (e.g. a locally situated female perspective, oral narrative tradition, African cultural memory of myths and traditions, and use of national languages) are conceptualized and highlighted in the materiality of literary marketing and circulation processes. The analysis is theoretically informed by Venkat B. Mani's thoughts on bibliomigrancy (whereby the circulation and translation of literary works performs a switch from one code to another, on travelling into new geographical contexts), and Ana Margarida Martins and Hilary Owen's gender and postcolonial close readings of Chiziane's early circulation paths. Furthermore, the analysis will consider how gender difference manifests itself in, and influences, the circulation processes. The study thereby traces how Chiziane's vernacular poetics become recoded in circulation into other (niche) markets, from representing a counterhegemonic social critique in the local literary discourse, into an anthropological "authentic" (exotified) literature, written by a Lusophone

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Invoking Flora Nwapa: Nigerian women writers, femininity and spirituality in world literature

Uimonen

2020

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By invoking Flora Nwapa, this monograph draws attention to Nigerian women writers in world literature, with an emphasis on femininity and spirituality. Flora Nwapa’s Efuru (1966) was the first internationally published novel in English by a female African writer. With the establishment of Tana Press in 1977, Flora Nwapa also became the first female publisher in Africa. Although Flora Nwapa has been recognized as the ‘mother of modern African literature’, she is not sufficiently acknowledged in world literary canons or world literature studies, which is something this monograph aspires to redress, with the help of earlier studies, especially Nigerian scholarship. Drawing on the Efuru@50 celebration in Nigeria in 2016, this book explores the revival of Flora Nwapa’s fame as the pioneer of African women’s literature. Using an ethnographic rather than biographical approach, it captures Flora Nwapa’s literary practice in the context of the Nigerian literary scene and its interlinkages with world literature. The ethnographic portrayal of Flora Nwapa is complemented with an exposé of a select number of contemporary Nigerian women writers, based on interviews during fieldwork in Nigeria. The book uses concepts like creolized aesthetics and womanist worldmaking to advance scholarly understandings of world literature, which is conceived here as a pluriverse of aesthetic worlds. Exploring experimental ethnographic writing, the book combines the genres of creative non-fiction, descriptive ethnography and scholarly analysis, in an effort to make the text more accessible to academic as well as non-academic readers. Through travel notes the experience of fieldwork is shared in a candid manner. Detailed ethnography from the Efuru@50 literary festival is presented to show the expansion of Flora Nwapa’s fame. In-depth analyses of Flora Nwapa’s literary works and the cultural context of her literary practice cover a wide range of themes, from feminine storytelling and children’s literature, to publishing and digitalization. The theoretical discussion draws on anthropological, literary and African womanist theory to contextualize and explore the central themes of femininity and spirituality in world literature. Inspired by the social change perspective of African womanism and critical decolonial theory, the book makes a contribution to current efforts to explore a more socially just and environmentally sustainable world of many worlds. Paying close attention to gender complementarity and sacred engagements in Flora Nwapa’s literary worldmaking, it shows how world literature can help us create other possible worlds of human, spiritual and environmental coexistence.

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Gender and the Circulation of African Lusophone Literature into the Portuguese Literary System

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Northern Crossings

Northern Crossings

Recoding Paulina Chiziane’S Vernacular Poetics

Invoking Flora Nwapa: Nigerian women writers, femininity and spirituality in world literature

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