SOURCE: Nwankwo, Chimalum. “The Feminist Impulse and Social Realism in Ama Ata Aidoo's No Sweetness Here and Our Sister Killjoy.” In Ngambika: Studies of Women in African Literature, edited by Carole Boyce Davies and Anne Adams Graves, pp. 151-59. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, Inc., 1986.

In the following essay, Nwankwo explores how the reality of African feminism is portrayed in No Sweetness Here and Our Sister Killjoy.

Feminism challenges, with justification, the secondary status of women in all societies. Some such challenges in African literature are suspiciously autobiographical and irredeemably subjective. Many are successful in presenting the universal dilemma of heterosexual relationships. Whether we are in the moribund traditional world of Flora Nwapa and Buchi Emecheta or wrapped in the earthy reminiscences of Charity Waciuma, certain crucial questions remain unavoidable. How does one translate individual subjective experience into legitimate questions for social redress? How does the African...