Rozena Maart (born 1962 [1] ) is a South African writer, and professor, currently living in Durban. She is the Director for the Centre for Critical Research on Race and Identity. She has been recognized for her writing, and for her work opposing apartheid and violence against women. She has lectured throughout Canada, the United States and many parts of the world.
She was born in District Six, Cape Town, South Africa, the old slave quarter of Cape Town. Her family was forcibly removed from District Six in 1973 as a result of the government's Forced Removal Act. In 1987 when she was 24, Maart was nominated for the "Woman of the Year" award hosted in Johannesburg, for her work opposing violence against women and for starting, with four women, the first Black feminist organization in Cape Town, Women Against Repression (WAR).
She moved to Canada in 1989 and published her first book of poetry in 1990, Talk About It!. She won the Journey Prize in 1992 for her short story "No Rosa, No District Six", which later appeared in her debut short story collection "Rosa's District Six." She is the author of several books of poetry, short fiction, non-fiction and novels, most recently the novel The Writing Circle, published in 2007 (TSAR Publications), which is being made into a feature film. Rosa's District Six made the weekly bestseller list in Canada in 2006 and the HOMEBRU 2006 list in South Africa.
She has a PhD from the University of Birmingham, U.K. (1993–1996) Centre for Cultural Studies. [2]
Her work examines relationships between and among Political Philosophy, Black Consciousness, Derrida and Deconstruction, Psychoanalysis, Feminist Theory, and Critical Theories of race and racism.
Maart recently served on the UNESCO Scientific Committee for the South-South Philosophical Dialogues, which produced a Philosophical textbook covering four regions—Africa, Asia, South and Central America and the Arab region—in four languages (English, French, Spanish and Arabic)
In 2010 The Writing Circle was noted as one of the ten top books in South African literature in her homeland, South Africa and nominated by the African Studies Association for the Aidoo-Snyder Book Prize
Feminist science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction focused on theories that include feminist themes including but not limited to gender inequality, sexuality, race, economics, and reproduction. Feminist SF is political because of its tendency to critique the dominant culture. Some of the most notable feminist science fiction works have illustrated these themes using utopias to explore a society in which gender differences or gender power imbalances do not exist, or dystopias to explore worlds in which gender inequalities are intensified, thus asserting a need for feminist work to continue.
Science fiction and fantasy serve as important vehicles for feminist thought, particularly as bridges between theory and practice. No other genres so actively invite representations of the ultimate goals of feminism: worlds free of sexism, worlds in which women's contributions are recognized and valued, worlds that explore the diversity of women's desire and sexuality, and worlds that move beyond gender.
Daphne Marlatt, born Buckle, CM, is a Canadian poet and novelist who lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.
District Six is a former inner-city residential area in Cape Town, South Africa. Over 60,000 of its inhabitants were forcibly removed during the 1970s by the apartheid regime.
The poetry of South Africa covers a broad range of themes, forms and styles. This article discusses the context that contemporary poets have come from and identifies the major poets of South Africa, their works and influence.
Zoë Wicomb is a South African-Scottish author and academic who has lived in the UK since the 1970s. In 2013 she was awarded the inaugural Windham–Campbell Literature Prize for her fiction.
Ifi Amadiume is a Nigerian poet, anthropologist and essayist. She joined the Religion Department of Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, US, in 1993.
Michelle Carla Cliff was a Jamaican-American author whose notable works included Abeng (novel) (1985), No Telephone to Heaven (1987), and Free Enterprise (2004).
Nadia Davids is a South African playwright, novelist, and author of short stories, and screenplays. Her work has been published, produced, and performed in Southern Africa, Europe, and the United States. She was a Philip Leverhulme Prize winner in 2013. Her play What Remains won five Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards.
Bernardine Anne Mobolaji Evaristo,, is a British author and academic. Her eighth book, the novel, Girl, Woman, Other, won the Booker Prize in 2019, making her the first black woman and the first black British person to win it. In 2020 she won the British Book Awards: Fiction Book of the Year and Author of the Year, as well as the Indie Book Award for Fiction. The novel was one of Barack Obama's 19 Favourite Books of 2019 and Roxane Gay's Favourite Book of 2019. In June 2020 she became the first woman of colour and the first black British writer to get to number 1 in the UK paperback fiction charts, where she held the top spot for five weeks. The novel is currently being translated into 35 languages. Evaristo's writing also includes short fiction, drama, poetry, essays, literary criticism, and projects for stage and radio. Two of her books, The Emperor's Babe (2001) and Hello Mum (2010), have been adapted into BBC Radio 4 dramas. Her ninth book, Manifesto: On Never Giving Up is published by Penguin UK October 2021 and Grove Atlantic USA (2022).
Trish Salah is an Arab Canadian writer, activist, cultural critic, and university professor. Her first volume of poetry, Wanting in Arabic, was published in 2002 by TSAR Publications and reissued in a new edition in 2013. Her second book, Lyric Sexology Vol. 1 was released by Roof Books in 2014. A new Canadian edition was released by Metonymy Press in 2017.
Makhosazana Xaba is a South African poet. She trained as a nurse and has worked a women's health specialist in NGOs, as well as writing on gender and health.
Becky Birtha is an American poet and children's author who lives in the greater Philadelphia area. She is best known for her poetry and short stories depicting African-American and lesbian relationships, often focusing on topics such as interracial relationships, emotional recovery from a breakup, single parenthood and adoption. Her poetry was featured in the acclaimed 1983 anthology of African-American feminist writing Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology, edited by Barbara Smith and published by Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press. She has won a Lambda Literary award for her poetry. She has been awarded grants from the Pew Fellowships in the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts to further her literary works. In recent years she has written three children's historical fiction picture books about the African-American experience.
In 2004, Jane Bennett co-edited Jacketed Women: Qualitative Research Methodologies on Sexualities and Gender in Africa with Charmaine Pereira. Bennett has a BA from the University of Natal, MPhil and EdD from Columbia University. She has an academic background in linguistics, literature, sociology, and feminist theory.
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches is a collection of essential essays and speeches written by Audre Lorde, a woman who wrote from the particulars of her identity: Black woman, poet, activist, cancer survivor, mother, and feminist writer. This collection, now considered a classic volume, of Lorde's most influential works of non-fiction prose has had a groundbreaking impact in the development of contemporary feminist theories. In fifteen essays and speeches dating from 1976 to 1984, Lorde explores the complexities of intersectional identity, while explicitly drawing from her personal experiences of oppression to include: sexism, heterosexism, racism, homophobia, classism, and ageism. The book examines a broad range of topics, including love, self-love, war, imperialism, police brutality, coalition building, violence against women, Black feminism, and movements towards equality that recognize and embrace differences as a vehicle for change. With meditative conscious reasoning, Lorde explores her misgivings for the widespread marginalization deeply-rooted in the United States' white patriarchal system, all the while, offering messages of hope. The essays in this landmark collection are extensively taught and have become a widespread area of academic analysis. Lorde's philosophical reasoning that recognizes oppressions as complex and interlocking designates her work as a significant contribution to critical social theory.
You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town was the first book by Zoë Wicomb. Published in 1987, it was a collection of inter-related short stories, set during the Apartheid era and partly autobiographical, the central character being a young Coloured woman growing up in South Africa, speaking English in an Afrikaans-speaking community in Namaqualand, attending the University of the Western Cape, leaving for England, and authoring a collection of short stories. This work has been compared to V. S. Naipaul’s The Enigma of Arrival. As Rob Gaylard notes, "Central to Wicomb's collection of stories is the question of identity, and intimately bound up with this are the polarities of home and exile. Significantly, the stories were written while Wicomb was in exile in England."
Yewande Omotoso is a South African-based novelist, architect and designer, who was born in Barbados and grew up in Nigeria. She is the daughter of Nigerian writer Kole Omotoso, and the sister of film maker Akin Omotoso. She currently lives in Johannesburg. Her two published novels have earned her considerable attention, including winning the South African Literary Award for First-Time Published Author, being shortlisted for the South African Sunday Times Fiction Prize, the M-Net Literary Awards 2012, and the 2013 Etisalat Prize for Literature, and being longlisted for the 2017 Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction.
Gwen Benaway is Canadian poet and activist. She is a PhD candidate in the Women & Gender Studies Institute at the Faculty of Arts & Science at the University of Toronto. Benaway has also written non-fiction for The Globe and Mail and Maclean's.
Mpho Tshivhase is a South African philosopher who teaches at the University of Pretoria. In April 2018, Tshivhase became the first black woman to receive a PhD in philosophy in all of South Africa. Tshivhase teaches applied ethics and her research is focused on uniqueness and individuality.
Yejide Kilanko is a Nigerian Canadian fiction writer and social worker. She is known for addressing violence against women in her work. Her debut novel, Daughters Who Walk This Path, was a Canadian fiction bestseller in 2012.
Sandra Aikaruwa Mushi is a Tanzanian writer, primarily of poetry and short stories.