African Male Writers’ Presentation of Women in African Literature

Abstract

This article analyses the presentation of women characters by male writers such as Okot p‟Bitek, Ngugi wa Thiongo and Francis Imbuga. It will look at the woman question both as a historical and a cultural phenomenon. Various women characters will be looked into so as to investigate how they were shaped by the colonial and imperialistic struggle. It is worth noting that except for Francis Imbuga‟s Aminata at that point male writers were not presenting women characters of high status. For example, Lawino is not educated, Malaya is a prostitute, Wanja begins out as a young girl who is raped and who ends up to be a prostitute. Imbuga has used a female character who, contrary to those other female characters, is educated and who is a lawyer. I will analyse the characters in the order in which the respective works were published.