Representations of the struggle for survival of Zimbabwean women in selected post-2000 fictional narratives

Abstract

The aim of this article is to trace the representations of the struggle for survival of Zimbabwean women in the post-2000 era in arguing how women vacated spaces of victimhood, to transition into resilient agents and pilots of their own lives. The democratisation of the bread winning act through the economic crisis enabled women to ride on the wave of abject suffering, converting it into an opportunity to carve and inscribe their presence as subjects and agents in the economic sphere. This shows that with adequate support, women can contribute enormously to the Zimbabwean economy. To analyse and to critique the struggle for survival by Zimbabwean women, this article employed selected Zimbabwean women authors of the post-2000 period and their fictional writings. The selected fictional literary texts and the women authors that were used are: Virginia Phiri’s Highway Queen (2010) and NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names (2013).

Keywords: women, representations, struggle for survival, resilience, agents