The Languages and Literatures of Africa: the sands of Babel (review)

Abstract

and reversal of gender roles’. Therefore, ‘writing madness’, she implies, is potentially liberating, an idea which informs her subsequent focus on women writers. While deviant women are punished in folktales, unruly women seem driven to madness, Veit-Wild points out, in African women’s writing. Bessie Head’s A Question of Power is a prime example. Rebeka Njau’s Ripples in the Pool and Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions and Kare Kare Zvako are other instances of voicing or depicting gender violence (and resistance). The significance of ‘mad’ creative production, Veit-Wild optimistically suggests, is a possible ‘invocation of new gender roles’. Veit-Wild strikes the right balance in her assortment of male and female writers, colonial and post-colonial texts, oral and written literature, Anglophone and Francophone. That said, the book suffers somewhat from a loose, shifting, all-encompassing concept of madness. Because her canvas is so vast, VeitWild struggles to pull the many strands and vignettes she has to offer into a single over-arching distinctive argument. The analyses, though poignant, are somewhat scattered. Nonetheless, Veit-Wild deserves credit for a diverse, pioneering and useful compilation.