Rising Anthills                           Series Editors      Engaging Modernity: Muslim Women and the Politics ofAgency in Postcolonial Niger Ousseina D. Alidou Rising Anthills: African and African American Writing on Female Genital Excision, 1960–2000 Elisabeth Bekers Tired ofWeeping: Mother Love, Child Death, and Poverty in Guinea-Bissau Jónína Einarsdóttir Embodying Honor: Fertility, Foreignness, and Regeneration in Eastern Sudan Amal Hassan Fadlalla Women’s Organizations and Democracy in South Africa: Contesting Authority Shireen Hassim Gossip, Markets, and Gender: How Dialogue Constructs Moral Value in Post-Socialist Kilimanjaro Tuulikki Pietilä Surviving the Slaughter: The Ordeal ofa Rwandan Refugee in Zaire Marie Béatrice Umutesi; translated by Julia Emerson Rising Anthills African and African American Writing on Female Genital Excision, 1960–2000 Elisabeth Bekers The University of Wisconsin Press Publication of this volume has been made possible, in part, through support from the A F   C  L  S   U  W–M. The University ofWisconsin Press 1930 Monroe Street, 3rd Floor Madison, Wisconsin 53711-2059 uwpress.wisc.edu 3 Henrietta Street London WCE 8LU, England eurospanbookstore.com Copyright © 2010 The Board ofRegents ofthe University ofWisconsin System Allrightsreserved.Nopartof thispublicationmaybereproduced,storedinaretrievalsystem, or transmitted,inanyformatorbyanymeans,digital,electronic,mechanical,photocopying, recording,orotherwise,orconveyedviatheInternetoraWebsitewithoutwrittenpermission of the University of Wisconsin Press, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews. 1 3 5 4 2 Printed in the United States ofAmerica Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bekers, Elisabeth, 1971– Rising anthills: African and African American writing on female genital excision, 1960–2000 / Elisabeth Bekers. p. cm.—(Women in Africa and the diaspora) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-299-23494-2 (pbk.: alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-299-23493-5 (e-book) 1. Female circumcision in literature. I. Title. II. Series: Women in Africa and the diaspora. PL8010.B43 2010 809´.933522—dc22 2009041892 Contents Preface vii Analyzed Works xi Introduction: Writing Women’s Rites and Rights 3 Dissecting Anthills of Insurrection 3 Traditional Discourses of Female Genital Excision 8 Colonial and Anticolonial Discourses of Female Genital Excision 14 Feminist and Human Rights Discourses of Female Genital Excision 17 Postcolonial Discourses of Female Genital Excision 21 Three Literary “Generations”Writing on Female Genital Excision 25 v vi Contents Chapter 1: Denunciations ofColonization and Hesitant Feminist Criticism in Early Literary “Circumscriptions”ofFemale Genital Excision (1963–1974) 27 Excised Women’s Bodies as Pamphlets of Ethnicity in the Kenyan Struggle for Independence (Ngugi, Waciuma, and Likimani) 31 Two Exceptional Women’s Alternative Gender Scripts (Nwapa and Njau) 59 The First Generation: Cultural Ambassadors, Cautious Critics 73 Chapter 2: Growing Feminist Disenchantment in Literary Explorations ofFemale Genital Excision around the UN Decade for Women (1968–1988) 76 Immobile Women’s Moving Narratives (Kourouma, Farah, El Saadawi, and Maïga Ka) 80 Captive/ating Women Warriors (Farah, El Saadawi, Beyala, and Rifaat) 114 The Second Generation: Resistance against National and Gender Oppression 148 Chapter 3: The Globalization ofthe Literary Debate on Female Genital Excision at the Close ofthe Twentieth Century (1982–1998) 151 African American Fictionalizations of a “Culturally Challenging”Practice (Walker, Naylor, and Clarke and Dickerson) 155 Cultural Complications in Fiction by Other Women of African Descent (Accad, Herzi, and Keïta) 176 The Third Generation: Affinities across the Diaspora ... and through Time 193 Conclusion 196 Notes 203 References 231 Index 249 Preface Femalegenitalexcisionisundoubtedlyoneof themostheavilyandwidelyde- batedculturaltraditionsofourtime.Althoughtheritualpracticeismostpreva- lentinAfrica,1thevoicesofAfricanscontributingtotheinternationaldebateon female genital excision tend to be drowned out by the outraged reactions of Westernerswhoconsiderthetraditiona“visiblemarkerof outrageousprimi- tivism,sexism,andtheThirdWorldwoman”(Kanneh1998,162).RisingAnthills highlightshow,inliterature,authorsofAfricandescenthavediscussedtheprac- ticeconsistentlysincethe1960s.Establishedandlesser-knownartists,bothmen andwomen,fromvariouspartsof theAfricancontinentanddiaspora,writing mainlyinEnglishbutalsoinArabicandotherlanguages,haveraisedthesubject inasteadilyexpandingbodyof works,mostlynovels,includingnovelsforado- lescents,butalsoafewshortstories,plays,andpoems.Someof theseworks wentoutofprintyearsagoandaredifficulttolocate;othersbelongtothecanon of worldliteratureandcanbepickedoff theshelvesof anylargerbookshop. But even if some of the texts have been showered with attention, in general vii viii Preface literary discussions of female genital excision have received remarkably little notice, whether in literary criticism or in the international debate on the tradi- tion, especially when considering the growing interest in the practice in the last decades. RisingAnthillsoffersauniqueinsightintothedevelopmentof Africanand AfricanAmericanliteraryexplorationsoffemalegenitalexcisioninthelastfour decades of the twentieth century. Drawing on research I began for my MA thesis attheUniversityof Hull(UK)andcompletedinmyPhDdissertationfor theUniversityof Antwerp(Belgium),Ishowhowascoreof literaryauthorsof Africandescentcommunicatetheir(era’s)understandingoffemalegenitalexci- sionintwenty-twotextspublishedbetween1963and1998:sixteennovels,three shortstories,twoplays,andapoem.AlthoughmyWesternupbringingmoves metodisapproveof femalegenitalexcision,inthisbookIgivecentralposition totheauthors’constructionsof femalegenitalexcisionratherthanmyown. SinceIamdiscussingawiderangeof literaryappraisalsof femalegenitalexci- sion,notallof whichpresentthepracticeasamutilation,Irejectthecurrently mostfrequentlyusedterm,“femalegenitalmutilation”(“FGM”forshort),in favorof thenonderogatory“femalegenitalexcision.”Asacovertermforgenital operationsasdifferentasclitoridectomyandinfibulation,“femalegenitalex- cision”ismoretransparent,lessmisleadingand/orgrammaticallymoreversa- tilethan other alternatives, such as “female circumcision,”“female genital sur- geries,”and “female genital cutting.”2Nevertheless, I am well aware that “every view is a view from somewhere”(Abu-Lughod 1991, 141) and that, by choosing a decidedly nonpartisan label and by focusing exclusively on literary texts by authors of African descent, I, too, am taking a marked position with regard to the practice, though hopefully one that does not foreclose the discussion. Toaccommodatetheheterogeneityof theselectedcorpus,Iadoptacom- parative,interdisciplinaryapproachthatnotonlycrossessomeof thecustom- arylinguistic,regional,andnationaldivisionsinAfricanliteratures,3butthat alsotranscendssomeconventionaldisciplinaryboundaries.Mystudydrawson insightsfromboththeanglophoneandthefrancophonebranchesof African literarycriticism,AfricanAmericanliterarystudies,andnarratologyaswellas onthestudyof discourse,postcolonialstudies,andfeministandgendercriti- cism; on anthroplogical, psychological, and sociological discussions of body rituals; and on postmodern critical thinking on the body as discursive con- struct.Whatdrivesmyanalysisisnotsomuchaninterestintheculturalspeci- ficities to which each of the works testify, however fascinating these are, but ratheradesiretoexplorehowthedifferentliterarydiscussionsof femalegenital excisionrelatetocontemporaneousliterature,tooneanotheraswellastothe generaldebateonfemalegenitalexcision.Inmyclosereadingsof thetextsIdo notjustfocusonwhatthevariousauthorswrite,butmoreimportantlyonhow theywriteaboutfemalegenitalexcision.ForthispurposeIanalyzenotjustthe specificallyliterarytechniquesthattheauthorsuse,suchasnarrativestructure, Preface ix point of view (narration and focalization), characterization, setting, and style, but also the particular discourses of female genital excision on which they draw.4Afterall,theauthors’constructionsoffemalegenitalexcisiondonotexist in discursive isolation, but, like other literary texts, “form an implicit dialogue” with nonliterary discussion on the subject (Miller 1990, 4). My extensive and in-depth comparison of four decades of African and AfricanAmericanliteraryexplorationsof femalegenitalexcisiondevelopsthe fewexistinganalysesthatspecificallydealwiththepracticeasitisdiscussedin literature.Despiteagrowingliterary-criticalinterestinwomen’sissuessincethe UnitedNationsInternationalDecadeforWomen(1975–85)andTobeLevin’s groundbreaking“activist’sviewof femalecircumcision”inNgugiwaThiong’o’s TheRiverBetween(inCaroleBoyceDaviesandAnneAdamsGraves’s1986trail- blazingvolumeonwomeninAfricanliteratures),itwasactuallynotuntilthe mid-1990sthatscholarsbegantopaymoreattentiontofemalegenital excision in literature.5Although, for now, it has been primarily literary critics who have taken an interest,6I am convinced that the literary discussions of the practice, and critical analyses thereof, including the present book, offer a valuable con- tribution to the debate on female genital excision. While my close readings of the various texts give insight into the specific literary and discursive strategies that authors, through time and across Africa and its diaspora, have used to discuss the heavily debated practice, I hope my book will also contribute to readers’understanding of the literary-historical contexts of these works and of the profound complexity of (the debate on) female genital excision. My own understanding of this complexity owes much to the many stimu- lating discussions I have had over the years with scholars, authors, and activists on various continents, and I specifically wish to thank, for their generous sug- gestions and insightful comments, Omofolabo Ajayi-Soyinka, Yasmine Allas, Mariama Barry, Calixthe Beyala, James Booth, Osman Conteh, Kathy Davis, Nawal El Saadawi, Sissy Helff, Ylva Hernlund, Sherif Hetata, renée hoogland, Isabel Hoving, Ahmadou Makhtar Kante, Frans-Willem Korsten, Tobe Levin, Mark Lilleleht, Isabelle Meuret, Katwiwa Mule, Annor Nimako, Obioma Nnae- meka, Zoe Norridge, Ruth Oldenziel, Mineke Schipper, Chika Unigwe, and the anonymous reviewers of earlier publications. On a more practical level, I am grateful to Sam Ovraiti for his kind permission to use his watercolor Distorted Trackson the cover, to the Anonymous Fund of the College of Letters and Sci- enceattheUniversityofWisconsin–Madisonforitsgenerousfinancialsupport, andtoGwenWalkerandtheteamattheUniversityof WisconsinPressforall their help. The views and analyses in this book, however, are mine, and where my research or writing falls short, the fault is entirely mine. I am deeply grateful to my family and friends for having given me the space and time to write this book as well as for having provided me with the equally indispensable distractions. I dedicate this book to my husband, Lieven, and our two girls, Mirte and Maren: for all the joy you give me.