The Fury and Cries of Women

Gabons first female novelist, Angle Rawiri probed deeper into the issues that writers a generation before herMariama B and Aminata Sow Fallhad begun to address. Translated by Sara Hanaburgh, this third novel of the three Rawiri published is considered the richest of her fictional prose. It offers a gripping account of a modern woman, Emilienne, who questions traditional values and seeks emancipation from them. Emiliennes active search for feminism on her own terms is tangled up with cultural expectations and taboos of motherhood, marriage, polygamy, divorce, and passion. She completes her university studies in Paris; marries a man from a rival ethnic group; becomes a leader in womens liberation; enjoys professional success, even earning more than her husband; and eventually takes a female lover. Yet still she remains unsatisfied. Those closest to her, and even she herself, constantly question her role as woman, wife, mother, and lover. The tragic death of her only childher daughter Rkiaaccentuates Emiliennes anguish, all the more so because of her subsequent barrenness and the pressure that she concede to her husbands taking a second wife. In her forceful portrayal of one womans life in Central Africa in the late 1980s, Rawiri prompts us not only to reconsider our notions of African feminism and the canon of francophone African womens writing but also to expand our awareness of the issues women face across the world today in the workforce, in the bedroom, and among family and peers.