West Virginia University Philological Papers, September 22nd, 2005
Buchi Emecheta's sardonically entitled novel The Joys of Motherhood engenders disparate readings. Does Emecheta intend to lance a scathing critique of the traditional role of motherhood in her native Nigeria? Does her protagonist's plight in colonial Africa carry a universal weight? Nigerian sociologist Ifi Amadiume is extremely wary of the Western scholar's attempt to address these questions. Katherine Fishburn, in Reading Buchi Emecheta; Cross-Cultural Conversations, shares her concern, arguing that for Western readers "it is too easy ... to think that we have engaged a stranger in a frien...
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