Gender (Re)configuration in Nigerian Literature through Time and Space

Abstract

SummaryThis article underscores how time and space have influenced the question of gender – its construction, representation and re-interpretation – in contemporary Nigerian literature. It examines various positions of male writers, such as Cyprian Ekwensi and Chinua Achebe, whose works entrenched a conservative, patriarchal perspective of gender that valorises masculinity at the expense of femininity. On the other hand, women writers such as Buchi Emecheta, Flora Nwapa and Zaynab Alkali produced fiction which countered the stereotypical representations of women pervasive in early Nigerian literature. Contemporary Nigerian women writers such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Lola Shoneyin and Chika Unigwe, writing from an unapologetically feminist point of view, have built on the work of the pioneer womanist writers to produce works of art that underline social transformation in Nigeria where gender hierarchy is constantly questioned and challenged. This discussion of the evolution of gender representation in Nigerian literature is pursued against the backdrop of theoretical understandings of time and space as intrinsically linked to re-imaginations of history and society.