Fathers and Daughters: An Anthology of Exploration

by Ato Quayson

This book is a first in combining essays from women about their African fathers and vice versa and will not only provide a significant set of insights into the relationship between fathers and daughters but also explore gaps in the perception of African Fatherhood. The book opens a window on this often, vexing relationship and draws on African experiences that reflect the complexities and nuances of a relationship that is at once universal as it is local. Contributors include prominent African scholars, writers and critics such as Abiola Irele, Simon Gikandi, Harry Garuba, Helon Habila, Leila Aboulela, Paul Tiyambe Zeleza, Abena Busia et al.

200 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2008

About the author

Ato Quayson is Professor of English and Director of the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies at the University of Toronto. He is the author of Oxford Street, Accra: City Life and the Itineraries of Transnationalism, Strategic Transformations in Nigerian Writing, Calibrations: Reading for the Social, and Aesthetic Nervousness: Disability and the Crisis of Representation, as well as editor of the two-volume Cambridge History of Postcolonial Literature, coeditor of A Companion to Diaspora and Transnationalism Studies and general editor of the Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry.

Reviews

[Nana Fredua-Agyeman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fathers & Daughters - An Anthology of Exploration (Ayebia Clarke, 2008; 200) is a collection of essays, poems and short stories about the relationships between daughters and fathers told from the point of view of either the father or the daughter. There is that belief, true or otherwise, that a daughter's first love is the father. Yet, it is all too clear that in Africa, this father-daughter relationship has poorly been explored. Ato Quayson's book is the first book I have come across that donates its pages to such an important exploration. It is said that until the lion learns to speak, tales of the hunt will always favour the hunter. Thus, until fathers learn to tell their side of the stories, men's representation in African novels will always go against them.

The role of men in books like Nervous Conditions, So Long a Letter, Joys of Motherhood, Purple Violet of Oshaantu, Purple Hibiscus, Opening Spaces: African Women Writing and many others are nothing to write about. They are always abusive, neglectful, intolerant (sometimes caused by being polygamous), aggressive, and anything nefarious that one could think about. In fact, such was the representation of men that it has become a marketing tool - the more wicked the man in the novel, the faster the tears will flow and the quicker the books will fly off the shelf. This is not to say that there are no men with such traits. But men are not mono-dimensional as they are always portrait - usually by women - in novels to be. Is it therefore strange that Chimamanda Adichie - upon the publication of her first novel Purple Hibiscus - was pitied by an American reader who said he never knew men in Africa were that abusive? Yes, this is the extent to which such portrayals of men could lead to.

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[Ayebia · Rating 5 out of 5]

978-0-9555079-0-8 is the isbn for Fathers & Daughters. Please amend!