Feminism with a Big “F”: Ethics and the Rebirth of African Feminism in Chika Unigwe's <em>On Black Sisters' Street</em>

Abstract

The 21st century has seen an outpouring of works by African women writers and many of them have been unabashedly feminist. These works have one thing in common: they tell of bodies in pain and they provoke pertinent ethical questions in that regard. This article examines Chika Unigwe’s novel, On Black Sisters’ Street , and argues that it belongs to the new generation of African women’s writing that recasts feminism as a moral issue of our times. The novel draws attention to some of the central issues of feminism: rights and dignities of the body of woman. In so doing, it establishes women’s rights as fundamental human rights that have to be addressed in Africa.