African Women in Novels. A Podcast by Eileen Omosa
Welcome to African Women in Novels, a Podcast by Eileen Omosa, author of Romance and Women’s Fiction novels.
This is the first episode of a podcast that will reference novels set in Africa to discuss how issues such as gender, gender related roles, relationships and the African Woman are portrayed in novels.
In future podcasts, I will invite guests who could be authors of the books we’ll be discussing, or people interested in the topic to come and share their experiences and views on gender relations. We’ll also look at the reasons behind that choice, and with what outcomes.
In discussing gender relations as presented in the novels, I will ask my guests and my listeners for their views in the following two questions:
1. Is the role of an African girl defined long before she is born, or is she free to define the life she desires?
2. The second question is, will be, what role do African women play in shaping existing narratives on gender relations?
But before we talk about the issues mentioned, I have mentioned above, there could be listeners asking about my use of the terms Africa, African girl, the African woman, African family. And, who I am to talk about these issues.
I will start with the first question which I summarize as, Is Africa a Country for us to talk about the African girl, African woman, the African Woman’s Journey - like people in Africa are a homogeneous group?
I will discuss the issue by sharing information on diversity in Africa.
Africa is a continent which covers a vast area of land, covering a vast land area—thirty point three seven million square kilometres. Second in size only to Asia.
The continent, that is the continent of Africa, is home to 54 countries and has a total population of over 1.2 billion people.
The Continent experiences diverse climatic conditions and is rich in natural resources—including arable land, wildlife, water, forests, people, minerals, and many others.
The diversity in the continent is further illustrated through its ethnicity and languages:
There are over three thousand ethnic groups in Africa, and over two thousand languages are spoken in the Continent.
All the above factors qualify Africa as the most diverse place in the world.
The diversity within the African Continent and within countries, implies the existence of variations in the practice of gender, gender relations, romance, family life and relations with women, girls, or boys.
The differences I have mentioned above regarding the continent of Africa, the same differences are very noticeable even within one country. For example, in a country like Kenya, there are fifty-two ethnic groups which also means that there are fifty-two dialects or languages spoken. And also, there are variations in climatic conditions which are experienced within the country which also bring about variations especially at the community and the family levels. These, and many other issues, are topics we’ll cover in future episodes of the podcast.
Who is Eileen to talk about Gender relations, family life, and African Women in Novels?
To answer that question, I will share a summary of who I am—that’s my life’s experiences, knowledge and skills, which qualify me to talk about and to facilitate discussions on the broader theme of gender relations and the African woman.
So, here’s my life’s story. I was born in Kenya, where I lived until my late thirties. But before then, that’s in my younger days, I lived in what can qualify as two worlds within one:
- I was born and brought within a rural household, and within our home we had piped water from a nearby school, but we still fetched water on our heads whenever the taps ran
