"He Knew the Word for It": Representations of Homosexuality in Anglophone Sub-Saharan Fiction
“He knew the word for it”: Representations of Homosexuality in Anglophone Sub-Saharan Fiction
Masterproef voorgedragen tot het behalen van de graad van Master in de Vergelijkende Moderne Letterkunde
Katelijne Sommen Master in de Vergelijkende Moderne Letterkunde Universiteit Gent Faculteit Letteren en Wijsbegeerte Academiejaar 2011-2012 Promotor: prof. dr. Stef Craps
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Table of contents
Foreword and Thanks Introduction Sexuality and Homosexuality in Africa Terminology “Africa” Literature study Wole Soyinka: The Interpreters (1965) Yulisa Amadu Maddy: No Past, No Present, No Future (1973) Rebeka Njau: Ripples in the Pool (1975) Ama Ata Aidoo: Our Sister Killjoy (1977) Tatamkhulu Afrika: “The Vortex” and “The Treadmill” (1996) Jude Dibia: Walking with Shadows (2005) Conclusion Bibliography 2 4 6 10 13 14 14 21 28 31 36 44 53 57
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Foreword and Thanks
When I started my Master 's Degree, there was one thing I knew: that I wanted to write a thesis about 'something ' that had to do with 'Africa '. The idea to investigate the existence and portrayal of different kinds of sexuality in African literature subsequently developed in stages in my head. Most important were my experiences as a volunteer in the Maasai region in Kenya in 2011; the conversations I was privileged enough to have with Maasai women and men about their ways of organising a society and the balances between men and women were a huge incentive to look further into culturally specific modes of sexual identities. When it hit home fully that many of the things that have meant a lot to me in my personal life and my identification as a young queer woman are not necessarily things or categories that exist for everyone else in the world, I felt three distinct things: amazement, slight selfdeprecation, and relief. Amazement and self-deprecation went hand in hand: it should not have been very surprising to me, a student of literature specifically interested in post-modern and post-colonial
Masterproef voorgedragen tot het behalen van de graad van Master in de Vergelijkende Moderne Letterkunde
Katelijne Sommen Master in de Vergelijkende Moderne Letterkunde Universiteit Gent Faculteit Letteren en Wijsbegeerte Academiejaar 2011-2012 Promotor: prof. dr. Stef Craps
1
Table of contents
Foreword and Thanks Introduction Sexuality and Homosexuality in Africa Terminology “Africa” Literature study Wole Soyinka: The Interpreters (1965) Yulisa Amadu Maddy: No Past, No Present, No Future (1973) Rebeka Njau: Ripples in the Pool (1975) Ama Ata Aidoo: Our Sister Killjoy (1977) Tatamkhulu Afrika: “The Vortex” and “The Treadmill” (1996) Jude Dibia: Walking with Shadows (2005) Conclusion Bibliography 2 4 6 10 13 14 14 21 28 31 36 44 53 57
2
Foreword and Thanks
When I started my Master 's Degree, there was one thing I knew: that I wanted to write a thesis about 'something ' that had to do with 'Africa '. The idea to investigate the existence and portrayal of different kinds of sexuality in African literature subsequently developed in stages in my head. Most important were my experiences as a volunteer in the Maasai region in Kenya in 2011; the conversations I was privileged enough to have with Maasai women and men about their ways of organising a society and the balances between men and women were a huge incentive to look further into culturally specific modes of sexual identities. When it hit home fully that many of the things that have meant a lot to me in my personal life and my identification as a young queer woman are not necessarily things or categories that exist for everyone else in the world, I felt three distinct things: amazement, slight selfdeprecation, and relief. Amazement and self-deprecation went hand in hand: it should not have been very surprising to me, a student of literature specifically interested in post-modern and post-colonial
Bibliography: AFRIKA, TATAMKHULU, Tightrope. Four Novellas, Mayibuye books, South Africa, 1996 AIDOO, AMA ATA, Our Sister Killjoy (or the Reflections of a Black-eyed Squint), Longman, London, 1977 EPPRECHT, MARC, Heterosexual Africa? The History of an Idea from the Age of Exploration to the Age of AIDS, University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, South Africa, 2008 EPPRECHT, MARC, “Sexual Minorities, Human Rights, and Public Health Strategies in Africa”, in African Affairs, 111/443, Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 223-243 HOAD, NEVILLE, African Intimacies. Race, Homosexuality and Globalization, University of Minnesota Press, United States, 2007 KENDALL, ““When a Woman Loves a Woman” in Lesotho: Love, Sex and the (Western) Construction of Homophobia” in Boy-Wives and Female Husbands. Studies of African Homosexualities (ed. Murray S. & Roscoe W.), Macmillan Press ltd, England, 1998 LORWAY, ROBERT, “Dispelling "Heterosexual African AIDS" in Namibia: Same-Sex Sexuality in the Township of Katutura ” in Culture, Health & Sexuality, Vol. 8, No. 5 (Sep. - Oct., 2006), pp. 435-449 MADDY, YULISA AMADU, No Past, No Present, No Future, Heinemann Education Books Ltd, Nairobi, 1973 MIGRAINE-GEORGE, HELENE, “Beyond the 'Internalist ' vs. 'Externalist ' Debate: The Local-Global Identities of African Homosexuals in Two Films, "Woubi Chéri" and "Dakan"”, in Journal of African Cultural Studies, volume 16, number 1, 2003, pp. 45-56 58 MURRAY, STEPHEN, & ROSCOE, WILL, (eds), Boy-Wives and Female Husbands. Studies of African Homosexualities, Macmillan Press ltd, England, 1998 NJAU, REBEKA, Ripples in the Pool, Heinemann Educational Books Ltd, Nairobi, 1975 SOYINKA, WOLE, The Interpreters, Andre Deutch Limited, London, 1965 59