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New Daughters of Africa

Page 1

by Margaret Busby




  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Introduction

  Pre-1900

  Nana Asma’u

  From “Lamentation for ’Aysha II”

  Sarah Parker Remond

  Why Slavery is Still Rampant

  The Negro Race in America

  Elizabeth Keckley

  Where I Was Born

  Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin

  Address to the First National Conference of Colored Women, 1895

  H. Cordelia Ray

  Toussaint L’Ouverture

  To My Mother

  Florida Ruffin Ridley

  Our Manners—Are They Bad?

  Protest Against Lynch Law

  Effie Waller Smith

  The “Bachelor Girl”

  The Cuban Cause

  1900s

  Meta Davis Cumberbatch

  A Child of Nature (Negro of the Caribbean)

  1920s

  Arthenia Bates Millican

  The Autobiography of an Idea

  1930s

  Barbara Chase-Riboud

  Ode to My Grandfather at the Somme 1918

  Nawal El Saadawi

  About Me in Africa—Politics and Religion in my Childhood

  Adrienne Kennedy

  Forget

  1940s

  Andaiye

  Audre, There’s Rosemary, That’s For Remembrance

  Joan Anim-Addo

  Ashes, She Says

  Simi Bedford

  From Yoruba Girl Dancing

  Nah Dove

  Race and Sex: Growing up in the UK

  Bonnie Greer

  Till

  Jane Ulysses Grell

  Whatever Happened to Michael?

  Queen of the Ocean Rose

  Rashidah Ismaili

  Dancing at Midnight

  Margo Jefferson

  My Monster

  Barbara Jenkins

  A Perfect Stranger

  NomaVenda Mathiane

  Passing on the Baton

  Elizabeth Nunez

  Discovering my Mother, from Not for Everyday Use

  Verna Allette Wilkins

  A Memory Evoked

  Sue Woodford-Hollick

  Who I Was Then, and Who I Am Now

  1950s

  Diane Abbott

  The Caribbean

  Candace Allen

  That First Night in Accra (1974)

  Yaba Badoe

  Aunt Ruby and the Witch

  Yvonne Bailey-Smith

  Meeting Mother

  Angela Barry

  Without Prejudice

  Linda Bellos

  Age

  Marion Bethel

  We Were Terrestrial Once, Maybe

  Of Cowrie Shells & Revolution

  Nina 1984

  Tanella Boni

  One Day Like No Other

  Beverley Bryan

  A Windrush Story

  Angela Cobbinah

  Black Tracking

  Carolyn Cooper

  Finding Romance Online in 2018

  Patricia Cumper

  Just So Much a Body Can Take

  Stella Dadzie

  Do You Remember?

  Roots

  Anni Domingo

  From Breaking the Maafa Chain

  Bernardine Evaristo

  On Top of the World

  Diana Ferrus

  I’ve come to take you home

  A woman’s journey to sanity

  Saartjie’s cry

  Nikky Finney

  Auction Block of Negro Weather

  Ifeona Fulani

  Three Islands, Two Cities: The Making of a Black/Caribbean/Woman Writer/Scholar

  Patricia Glinton-Meicholas

  Remembering, Re-membering

  Slavery Redux

  Woman Unconquerable

  Carmen Harris

  Hello . . . Goodbye

  Sandra Jackson-Opoku

  Boahema Laughed

  Donu Kogbara

  Losing My Fragile Roots

  Andrea Levy

  From Small Island

  Juliana Makuchi Nfah-Abbenyi

  Home is where you mend the roof

  Tess Onwueme

  The Runaway’s Daughter: A Diary

  Zuleica Romay Guerra

  Something About Me

  Andrea Rosario-Gborie

  1992

  Marina Salandy-Brown

  Lost Daughter of Africa

  Sapphire

  From Push

  Claire Shepherd

  Unforgotten

  Verene A. Shepherd

  Historicizing Gender-Based Violence in the Caribbean

  SuAndi

  Intergenerational Trauma

  Aroma of Memory

  Charlotte Williams

  Small Cargo, from Sugar and Slate

  Makhosazana Xaba

  #TheTotalShutdown: Disturbing Observations

  Tongues of their mothers

  1960s

  Leila Aboulela

  A Very Young Judge

  Sade Adeniran

  The Day I Died

  Patience Agbabi

  The Doll’s House

  Agnès Agboton

  1

  30

  Omega

  Ellah Wakatama Allfrey

  Longchase

  Amma Asante

  The Power of Defining Yourself

  Michelle Asantewa

  Rupununi affair

  Sefi Atta

  The Cocktail Party

  Gabeba Baderoon

  I forget to look

  Old photographs

  War Triptych: Silence, Glory, Love

  Doreen Baingana

  Tuk-Tuk Trail to Suya and Stars

  Ellen Banda-Aaku

  87 Tangmere Court

  Ama Biney

  Creating the New Man in Africa

  Malorie Blackman

  Letters

  Akosua Busia

  Mama

  Juanita Cox

  Guyana Poems

  Nana-Ama Danquah

  Saying Goodbye to Mary Danquah

  Edwidge Danticat

  Dawn After the Tempests

  Yvonne Denis Rosario

  the roach and the rat at the library

  Yvvette Edwards

  Security

  Zena Edwards

  In A Walthamstow Old People’s Home

  Four (and then some) Women

  Aminatta Forna

  Santigi

  Danielle Legros Georges

  Poem for the Poorest Country in the Western Hemisphere

  Lingua Franca with Flora

  A Stateless Poem

  palimpsest dress

  Songs for Women

  musing

  Wangui wa Goro

  Looking down from Mount Kenya

  Kitamu

  Nouvelle Danse on a Rainbow’s Edge

  Zita Holbourne

  I Died a Million Times for my Freedom

  The Injustice of Justice; Extradition

  Nalo Hopkinson

  Snow Day

  Delia Jarrett-Macauley

  The Bedford Women

  Catherine Johnson

  The Year I Lost

  Susan Nalugwa Kiguli

  The Naked Truth or The Truth of Nakedness

  Lauri Kubuitsile

  The Colours of Love

  Goretti Kyomuhendo

  Lost and Found

  Patrice Lawrence

  Sin

  Lesley Lokko

  “No more than three, please!”

  Karen Lord

  Cities of the Sun

  Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

  She i
s our Stupid

  Reneilwe Malatji

  My Perfect Husband

  Sarah Ládípọ̀ Manyika

  The Ambassador’s Wife

  Ros Martin

  Being Rendered Visible in The Georgian House Museum, Bristol

  Karen McCarthy Woolf

  Of Trees & Other Fragments

  Wame Molefhe

  I’m sure

  Marie NDiaye

  From Three Strong Women

  Juliane Okot Bitek

  genetics

  genuflections

  Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor

  These Fragments

  Winsome Pinnock

  Glutathione

  Claudia Rankine

  From Citizen

  Leone Ross

  Why You Shouldn’t Take Yourself So Seriously

  Kadija Sesay

  Growing Up ChrisMus

  Dorothea Smartt

  Poem Beginning With A Line From Claudia Rankine

  Adeola Solanke

  From Pandora’s Box

  Celia Sorhaindo

  Creation

  In The Air

  Survival Tips

  Andrea Stuart

  A Calabash Memory

  Jean Thévenet

  Sisters at Mariage Frères

  Natasha Trethewey

  My Mother Dreams Another Country

  Southern Gothic

  Incident

  South

  Hilda J. Twongyeirwe

  From Maisha Ndivyo ya Livyo

  Yvonne Vera

  From The Stone Virgins

  Phillippa Yaa de Villiers

  Marriage

  Foreign

  Heritage

  Song

  Kit de Waal

  From My Name Is Leon

  Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw

  Ashes

  Rebecca Walker

  From Adé: A Love Story

  1970s

  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

  From We Should All Be Feminists

  Zoe Adjonyoh

  A Beautiful Story

  Lisa Allen-Agostini

  The Cook

  Monica Arac de Nyeko

  Running for Cassava

  Yemisi Aribisala

  A book between you and me

  Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro

  Midwives (fragment)

  Mildred K. Barya

  Black Stone

  Jackee Budesta Batanda

  You are a stammerer!

  Jacqueline Bishop

  The Vanishing Woman

  Malika Booker

  The Conversation—Ruth & Naomi

  Letter from Hegar to Sarai

  Eve Tells Her Creation Myth

  Saint Michael

  Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond

  After Edwin

  Gabrielle Civil

  From Swallow the Fish

  Maxine Beneba Clarke

  Hurricane Season

  Nadia Davids

  From What Remains

  Camille T. Dungy

  From Dirt

  Aida Edemariam

  Seven types of water

  Esi Edugyan

  The Wrong Door: Some Meditations on Solitude and Writing

  Zetta Elliott

  Women Like Us

  Last Visit with Mary

  Diana Evans

  Thunder

  Deise Faria Nunes

  The person in the boat

  Roxane Gay

  There Is No “E” In Zombi Which Means There Can Be No You Or We

  Hawa Jande Golakai

  Candy Girl

  Rachel Eliza Griffiths

  Chosen Family

  Cathedral of the Snake and Saint

  Seeing the Body

  Joanne C. Hillhouse

  Evening Ritual

  Ethel Irene Kabwato

  After the Roses

  The Missing

  Women’s Day

  Fatimah Kelleher

  To Chew on Bay Leaves: on the Problematic Trajectory of Instrumentalist Justifications for Women’s Rights

  Rosamond S. King

  This is for the women

  (the hotbox and the flood)

  Untitled Poems

  for Isatou for Haddy for Adama for Elle

  Beatrice Lamwaka

  Missing Letter in the Alphabet

  Lebogang Mashile

  Requiem for Winnie

  Invocation

  Isabella Matambanadzo

  A Very Recent Tale

  Maaza Mengiste

  This Is What the Journey Does

  Sisonke Msimang

  Black Girl in America

  Blessing Musariri

  Signs That You Were Here

  A Poem I Wrote Standing Up—Indictment

  On Platform 3

  She, on the way to Monk’s Hill

  Wanjiku wa Ngũgĩ

  Hundred Acres of Marshland

  Ketty Nivyabandi

  Home

  Nana Oforiatta Ayim

  Abele, from The God Child

  Nnedi Okorafor

  Zula of the Fourth Grade Playground

  Louisa Adjoa Parker

  Black histories aren’t all urban: tales from the West Country

  Hannah Azieb Pool

  Nairobi, from Fashion Cities Africa

  Olúmìdé Pópóọlá

  The Swimmer

  Minna Salami

  Searching for my Feminist Roots

  Noo Saro-Wiwa

  A Fetching Destination

  Taiye Selasi

  From The Sex Lives of African Girls

  Lola Shoneyin

  How We Were

  Falling

  Buni Yadi

  Zadie Smith

  Speech for Langston

  Attillah Springer

  Castle in the Sand

  Valerie Joan Tagwira

  Mainini Grace’s Promise

  Jennifer Teege

  From My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me

  Chika Unigwe

  Nchekwube

  Ayeta Anne Wangusa

  My Mouth Carries Few Words

  Zukiswa Wanner

  This is not Au Revoir

  Jesmyn Ward

  From Sing, Unburied, Sing

  Tiphanie Yanique

  Monster in the Middle

  1980s

  Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀

  From Everything is Wonderful

  Harriet Anena

  The stories stranded in our throats

  My depression . . .

  Step by step

  Ayesha Harruna Attah

  Unborn Children

  Jay Bernard

  I resist the urge to destroy my own records by reflecting on archives, how I use them, and what they have meant to me

  Candice Carty-Williams

  Body Hair: Conversations and Conflict

  Yrsa Daley-Ward

  What they leave you with—three poems

  Tjawangwa Dema

  Born Sleeping

  Pugilist

  Confinement

  Edwige Renée Dro

  Courage Became Her Friend

  Reni Eddo-Lodge

  Women, Down your Tools!

  Summer Edward

  Love in the Time of Nationalistic Fever

  Old Year’s Melody

  Forest Psalmody

  Eve L. Ewing

  The Device

  home-going

  Epistle to the Dead and Dying

  Vangile Gantsho

  smallgirl

  Mama I am burning

  Her father’s tractor

  zakia henderson-brown

  unarmed

  A Man Walks into a Bar

  I Was Getting Out of Your Way

  ex-slave with long memory

  Afua Hirsch

  What Does It Mean To Be African?

  Naomi Jackson

  From The Star Side of Bird Hill

  Donika Kelly

  Sanctuary

/>   Where We End Up

  Brood

  Imbolo Mbue

  A Reversal

  Nadifa Mohamed

  A lime jewel

  The symphony

  Natalia Molebatsi

  a mending season

  the healer

  Melody

  Aja Monet

  hexes

  what riots true

  Glaydah Namukasa

  The last time I played Mirundi

  Selina Nwulu

  The Audacity of Our Skin

  Half-Written Love Letter

  Trifonia Melibea Obono

  Let the Nkúkúmá Speak

  Irenosen Okojie

  Synsepalum

  Chinelo Okparanta

  Trump in the Classroom

  Yewande Omotoso

  Open

  Makena Onjerika

  The Man Watching Our House

  Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida

  From That Hair

  Alake Pilgrim

  Remember Miss Franklin

  Zandria F. Robinson

  Memphissippi

  Namwali Serpell

  The Living and the Dead

  Warsan Shire

  Backwards

  Novuyo Rosa Tshuma

  Mr C

  1990s

  Yassmin Abdel-Magied

  Eulogy for My Career

  Rutendo Chabikwa

  Mweya’s Embrace

  Panashe Chigumadzi

  From These Bones Will Rise Again

  Anaïs Duplan

  Ode to the Happy Negro Hugging the Flag in Robert Colescott’s “George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware”

  “I Know This Is No Longer Sustainable,” Etc.

  Safia Elhillo

  border / softer

  how to say

  boys like me better when they can’t place where i’m from

  ars poetica

  Ashley Makue

  mali

  Bridget Minamore

  New Daughters of Africa

  Chibundu Onuzo

  Sunita

  Acknowledgements

  Copyrights and Permissions

  1992 Daughters of Africa

  About the Author

  Also by Margaret Busby

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Introduction

  What a joy to be introducing New Daughters of Africa—a truly collaborative venture that will have an inspiring legacy for years to come! Enabling it to be assembled in record time, writers not only came on board with enthusiasm and alacrity but often steered me in the direction of others whose work they admire, lest these were not already on my radar. Altogether, more than 200 living writers have contributed work to these pages—an amazing party guest list!

  A template of sorts was provided by the anthology I compiled more than twenty-five years ago, Daughters of Africa; yet this present volume represents something of a fresh start, since it duplicates none of the writers who appeared in the 1992 collection.1

  New Daughters of Africa begins with some important entries from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—and that a limited number of names represent these periods is not to say that there are not many others whose words could have expanded the early sections; however, these few names serve as a reminder of the indisputable fact that later generations stand tall because of those who have gone before. The chronology continues in the ordering of the twentieth- and twenty-first-century writers who follow by decade of birth, primarily to give context to the generational links.

  Beginning this anthology with Nana Asma’u2 (1793–1863) signals that there are foremothers who could have occupied a leading place in any era. A revered figure in northern Nigeria, she spoke four languages and was an educated and independent Islamic woman who can be considered a precursor to modern feminism in Africa. In her “Lamentation for ’Aysha”, epitomizing the depth of connection that at best can be found between sister-friends, she mourns the loss of her lifelong confidante with the words:

 

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