| Sub-Saharan women authors have been writing since the 70s, but it was with Mariama Bâ and her novel So long a letter that African women's literature finally became recognized as a genre. Bâ's novel, published in 1979, has inspired many women to write about the conditions of African women in a patriarchal society. This dissertation traces the evolution of themes, language and style in Subsaharan African women writers from different parts of Africa, as well as that of contemporary writers in exile. Authors such as Angele Rawiri, Ken Bugul, Calixthe Beyala, Fatou Diome, Veronique Tadjo and Werewere Liking have changed the landscape of African Francophone Literature by bringing to their readers' attention longstanding chauvinism and oppression in African societies. In more recent texts, women writers have developed a new literary aesthetics, recounting their African experience from within and without the African continent. |
