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Body, Sexuality, and Gender Matatu Journal for African Culture and Society FOUNDING EDITOR: HOLGER G. EHLING ————————————]^——————————— EDITORIAL BOARD Gordon Collier Geoffrey V. Davis Christine Matzke Ezenwa–Ohaeto Frank Schulze–Engler Chantal Zabus TECHNICAL AND CARIBBEAN EDITOR Gordon Collier ———————————— ]^ ——————————— BOARD OF ADVISORS Anne V. Adams (New York) Eckhard Breitinger (Bayreuth, Germany) M.J. Daymond (Durban, South Africa) Anne Fuchs (Nice, France) James Gibbs (Bristol, England) Johan Jacobs (Durban, South Africa) Jürgen Jansen (Aachen, Germany) Jürgen Martini (Magdeburg, Germany) Henning Melber (Windhoek, Namibia) Amadou Booker Sadji (Dakar, Senegal) Reinhard Sander (San Juan, Puerto Rico) John A. Stotesbury (Joensuu, Finland) Peter O. Stummer (Munich, Germany) Ahmed Yerima (Lagos, Nigeria) ]^ Matatu is a journal on African literatures and societies dedicated to interdisciplinary dialogue between literary and cultural studies, historiography, the social sciences and cultural anthropology. ]^ Matatu is animated by a lively interest in African culture and literature (including the Afro-Caribbean) that moves beyond worn-out clichés of ‘cultural authenticity’ and ‘national liberation’ towards critical exploration of African modernities. The East African public transport vehicle from which Matatu takes its name is both a component and a symbol of these modernities: based on ‘Western’ (these days usually Japanese) technology, it is a vigorously African institution; it is usually regarded with some anxiety by those travelling in it, but is often enough the only means of transport available; it creates temporary communicative communities and provides a transient site for the exchange of news, storytelling, and political debate. ]^ Matatu is firmly committed to supporting democratic change in Africa, to providing a forum for interchanges between African and European critical debates, to overcoming notions of absolute cultural, ethnic, or religious alterity, and to promoting transnational discussion on the future of African societies in a wider world. Body, Sexuality, and Gender ]^ Versions and Subversions in African Literatures 1 Edited by Flora Veit–Wild & Dirk Naguschewski Amsterdam - New York, NY 2005 Matatu Numbers 29–30 Cover design: Pier Post Cover photos: Lyle Harris (1990), courtesy TEN.8 magazine The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO 9706: 1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents Requirements for permanence”. ISBN: 90-420-1626-4 (Bound) ©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2005 Printed in The Netherlands C ONTENTS ] Acknowledgements | vii Introduction ] F LORA V EIT –W ILD AND D IRK N AGUSCHEWSKI Lifting the Veil of Secrecy | ix GENDERED BODIES ] C HIKWENYE O KONJO O GUNYEMI Tête-à-tête With the Chief: Post-Womanist Discourse in Bessie Head’s Maru | 3 ] R OBERT M UPONDE Roots/Routes: Place, Bodies and Sexuality in Yvonne Vera’s Butterfly Burning | 15 ] S IGRID G. K ÖHLER Mad Body-Gifts: A Postcolonial Myth of Motherhood in Calixthe Beyala’s Tu t’appelleras Tanga | 31 ] M ONICA B UNGARO Male Feminist Fiction: Literary Subversions of a Gender-Biased Script | 47 QUEERED BODIES ] C HERYL S TOBIE Between the Arches of Queer Desire and Race: Representing Bisexual Bodies in the Rainbow Nation | 65 ] D REW S HAW Queer Inclinations and Representations: Dambudzo Marechera and Zimbabwean Literature | 89 ] E LLEKE B OEHMER Versions of Yearning and Dissent: The Troping of Desire in Yvonne Vera and Tsitsi Dangarembga | 113 ] U NOMA N. A ZUAH The Emerging Lesbian Voice in Nigerian Fem