Narrating the burn : The emergence of a political voice for Zimbabwean women in the novels of Tsitsi Dangarembga and Yvonne Vera.

Abstract

In this thesis, I explore three novels by Tsitsi Dangarembga and three novels by Yvonne Vera in order to interrogate how they have decided to narrate black Zimbabwean women and give them an emerging political voice in the midst of this oppressive society. Ultimately, I argue that Dangarembga and Vera expose the systemic forces acting upon black Zimbabwean women through making the novel form their own. These two women novelists had to navigate an overwhelmingly masculine literary sphere as they experimented with the best ways to narrate the disruptions and violence that black Zimbabwean women faced before, during, and after the war for liberation.