The African Female Writer and Her Craft: Aspects of Yvonne Vera’s Peculiar Feminist Vision

Abstract

This paper is particularly concerned with identifying and examining some peculiar features of Yvonne Vera’s literary artistry. It essentially explores the varied ways the Zimbabwean writer has articulated some aspects of her feminist viewpoint through the unique manner she crafts her novels. While drawing illustrations from especially Without a Name, Under the Tongue, Butterfly Burning and The Stone Virgins, it discusses some of their
distinguishing qualities that include the nature of the writer’s expression and interpretation of being. The paper also evaluates the significance of her unique craftswomanship (craftsmanship), especially with regard to understanding the nature of the African peoples and their world. It discovers that Vera celebrates the “Africanness” of the African, insisting as well on the exceptional qualities embedded in the human person and the exulted position she/he occupies in the cosmic arrangement of beings. In addition, the paper reveals that the writer believes in the sentient nature of the cosmos and in the interconnectivity of all existing entities. It, therefore, maintains that in light of these qualities (among others), Vera’s feminist endeavour can rightly be branded as peculiar feminism.