Bøger af Cheryl Toman

There are few works of literature that capture the day-to-day life of a black family in France quite like Alice Endamne's Afropean. Published originally in French as C'est demain qu'on s'fait la malle in 2008, Endamne's first novel opens with the start of the school year in fall 1989 and culminates with the end of the summer in 1990. The reader follows the life of its teen protagonist, Laetitia Obame, and those of her friends, family, teachers and acquaintances, with particular attention paid to her skinhead-turned-boyfriend, Stéphane Pellerin. Endamne's fictional characters and their world are affected by very real historical events of the times: the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, the release in February 1990 of South African anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela after 27 years of imprisonment, and the desecration of the Carpentras Jewish cemetery in France in May 1990-all happenings that received worldwide media coverage.Cheryl Toman, Case Western Reserve University

Women Writers of Gabon: Literature and Herstory demonstrates how the invisibility of women (historically, politically, cross-culturally, etc.) has led to the omission of Gabon's literature from the African canon, but it also discusses in depth the unique elements of Gabonese women's writing that show it is worthy of critical recognition and that prove why Gabonese women writers must be considered a major force in African literature. This book is the only book-length critical study of Gabonese literature that exists in English and although there are titles in French that provide analyses of the works of Gabonese women writers, no one work is comprehensive nor is the history of women's writing in Gabon considered in the such a manner. Throughout the various chapters, the book explores, among other things, contributions that are unique to Gabonese women writers such as: definitions of African feminisms as they pertain to Gabonese society, the rewriting of oral histories, rituals, and traditions of the Fang ethnic group, one of the first introductions of same-sex couples in African Francophone literature, discussions on the impact of witchcraft on development, and the appropriating of the epic poetry known as the mvet by women writers. The chapters explore works by all major voices in Gabonese women's writing including Angele Rawiri, Justine Mintsa, Sylvie Ntsame, Honorine Ngou, and Chantal Magalie Mbazoo-Kassa and the book concludes with brief introductions of a younger generation of Gabonese women writers such as Edna Merey-Apinda, Alice Endamne, Nadia Origo, Miryl Eteno, and Elisabeth Aworet among others.