Mother’s Day in Africa

Mother’s day is a day for many people to show their appreciation towards mothers worldwide. It is celebrated in several African countries south of the sahara, including Ehtiopia, South Africa and Nigeria. African people celebrate Mother’s Day in its true spirit by acknowledging the importance of mothers in their lives and thanking them for all their love and care. The role of mothers in African societies is so essential that what affects them on a regular basis has much impact on the lives of the young generations as a whole. That’s why we want to present some books of African and/or African-American authors who contributed to the lives of mothers in globalized societies.

A Painful Season of Stubborn Hope. The Odyssey of an Eritrean Mother.  By Abeba Tesfagiorgis. Red Sea Press 1992

Abeba Tesfagiorgis has a startling story. Throughout this beautifully written book is woven the heart-wrenching story of a nation and a people who have struggled for decades in order to ‘breath the air of freedom’. A nation that has sacrificed its precious daughters and sons in order to have the right to self-determination. Abeba Tesfagiorgis includes in her book her story of imprisionment,having to allow her teenage children to make their decisions as strong Eritrean women despite her breaking heart upon having to come to terms with their mortality and then becoming a refugee with her two younger daughters and her husband. Her record of her experiences at the hands of the Ethiopians in Asmara, and the odyssey which follows her escape from the tortures, gives us a picture of how thoroughly the forces, first the Emperor, and then the Stalinist dictator Mengistu, alienated the Eritrean people.

Abeba Tesfagiorgis has given us an eloquent narrative of not just Eritrea’s struggle, but of the strength of which human beings are capable in the most difficult of circumstances.
About the Author
Abeba Tesfagiorgis is an Eritrean mother and former political prisoner. Two of her earlier books were published in Tigrigna in Asmara. As a young professional she was actively involved in forming and nurturing  many civic organizations for women.

African Women & Feminism. Reflecting on the Politics of Sisterhood. By Oyeronke Oyewumi. Africa World Press 2004

The relationship between African women and feminism is a contentious one. Embedded in this connection is the question of whether sisterhood—a mantra assuming a common oppression of all women and signifying feminist international/cross-cultural relations—describes the symbolic and functional representation of African women. The contributors in this book are aware of the global discourse on women as articulated by Western feminists and interrogate the issues raised by the misinterpretation of African women of both black and white American feminists. The implications of the dominance of Western men and women in the production of knowledge about Africa are also explored.

This is one of the first collections written by African women who were born and raised in Africa and are now teaching in the United States. The papers here focus on a variety of issues including the uses and abuses of female circumcision in global feminist discourse, the problem of the criminalization approach to eradicating female circumcision, the effect of the image of the victimized African woman on development policy, and gender imperialism as a metascript of domination and oppression and as encountered by African women in the academy. This volume also raises profound questions about the idea that a common anatomy can form the basis of sororal solidarity among women of different colors, cultures, classes, nations, and religions.

About the Author
Oyeronke Oyewumi is an associate professor of sociology at State University of New York at Stony Brook. Born in Nigeria, she was educated at the University of Ibadan and the University of California at Berkeley. She is the author of The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourse, which won a 1998 Distinguished Book Award of the American Sociological Association and was a finalist for the Herskovitts Prize of the African Studies Association in the same year.

Temba Tupu! (Walking Naked) The Africana Woman’s Poetic Self-Portrait. Edited by Nagueyalti Warren

Temba Tupu! is an anthology brimming with a cross-section of poetic styles that represent the creative genius of Africana women from the beginning of written records. Included are selections from Queen Hatshepsut, Makeda, Queen of Sheba, Sojourner Truth, Gladys Casely Hayford, Una Marson, matriarch of Jamaican women’s poetry, and Noemia Da Sousa, a revolutionary poet from southern Africa, as well as poems from contemporary poets like the former United States Poet Laureate, Rita Dove, popular people’s poet, Nikki Giovanni, Ghanaian poet and dramatist, Ama Ata Aidoo, Trinidadian poet, Grace Nichols, Nigerian poet, Taiwo Olaleye-Ornene, and Brazilian poet and scholar, Miriam Alves.

The poems assembled in this anthology center on Black women’s consciousness: self definitions, their questions regarding the complexities and contradictions of race and gender, their spiritual and inner lives, and their search for Truth. Many of these poets write to subvert and deconstruct the wicked popular representations of themselves by others. Some of the poems are overtly political while others are not. Some poets use formal prosody, while others do not. However, they all reveal the poets’ philosophy and the common issues that connect Africana women throughout the Diaspora.

About the Editor
Nagueyalti Warren, Ph.D., MFA, is Senior Lecturer in the Department of African American Studies at Emory University. She is winner of the 2008 Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award for her volume Margaret Circa 1834-1858. Coeditor of Southern Mothers: Facts and Fictions in Southern Women’s Writings (LSU press 1999), Warren has contributed numerous critical essays and book chapters on African American literature and women’s writings in particular.