(Ü/PS) Tsitsi Dangarembga's This Mournable Body: An Introduction to African Literature in English

Tsitsi Dangarembga is one of the most renowned female African authors of the twenty-first century as she has attracted critical attention at both regional and international levels as the first female writer in Zimbabwean literature in English. Her fiction explores questions and conditions of womanhood in relation to race, class, and the postcolonial challenges that define contemporary Zimbabwe. 
This seminar provides students with an introduction to African Literature in English, and traces its historical development from the colonial era, when it served as a form of anti-colonial resistance, to the present postcolonial situation, in which it negotiates not only colonial legacies but also current problems of Zimbabwean culture and society. With the help of This Mournable Body (2018) students will learn how to critically engage with literature. Through a close reading of the novel, we will examine intersecting issues of gender, class, race, and religion. In doing so, we will pay special attention to the body as a site of Zimbabwe’s postcolonial challenges that continue to impact the everyday experience of marginalised communities in particular.

In preparation for the seminar, please buy and read:
Dangarembga, Tsitsi (2018). This Mournable Body. The Women’s Press. [ISBN: 978-0954702335]