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BIOGRAPHY
Zaynab Alkali was born in the Tura-Wazila community of Borno State, Nigeria. She was educated at Queen Elizabeth Secondary School in Ilorin, Nigeria, Ah- madu Bello University, Zaria, and Bayero University, Kano. She was the prin- cipal of Shekara Girls’ Boarding School, Kano, an assistant lecturer at Bayero University, lecturer in English and African literature, University of Maiduguri and senior lecturer in English and coordinator of English and general studies, Modibbo Adama College, University of Maiduguri. She is currently engaged in research at Bayero University. In his forties Alkali’s father converted to Chris- tianity. In the early 1960s Alkali herself became a Muslim, yet she feels that both Christianity and Islam have influenced her. In 1971 she married Dr. Mo- hammed Nur Alkali, director-general of the Nigerian Institute of Political and Strategic Studies, Jos, Nigeria. They have six children.
MAJOR WORKS AND THEMES
Zaynab Alkali’s first novel, The Stillborn, was published by Longman in its Drumbeat series in 1984. It won the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) prize for prose fiction in 1985. The novel is set in northern Nigeria and explores the challenges facing Li, a young Nigerian woman, as she tries to balance the claims of her family and her own need for economic and emotional indepen- dence. Li’s father, Baba, is overbearing, abusing his traditional authority to completely control the lives of his children. Li’s grandfather warns, ‘‘Children shouldn’t be caged . . . for if the cage got broken by accident or design, they would find the world too big to live in’’ (25). This warning is prophetic; as the household breaks up, Li’s brother runs away, and her sister Awa marries an alcoholic. Li herself marries Habu, who has dreams of leading a luxurious, European-style life in the city, but is unable to make enough money even to support himself and his wife. Alkali uses the theme of the classic division be- tween the traditional country village and the modern city in her novel, but with a twist; when Li returns to her father’s village for the last time, she sees that the village has been modernized and altered. The missionaries in the village have influenced the rhythms of village life throughout Li’s childhood through the sound of their electric generator turning off and on and the glare of their electric lights at the hospital and in the missionary compound. Now the villagers themselves have zinc roofs, kerosene lamps, and gas generators: all segments of Nigerian society have been affected by Westernization.
The novel builds itself around Li’s movements between the village and the city. Rather than following the classic linear movement from the traditional village to the modern city, Li’s journey repeats and returns; at each return, she discovers a new mode of being for herself. At the end of the novel, she prepares to return to the city, but this is not simply a move toward the modern: Li’s movement to the city is also a return to her husband. Thus Alkali disturbs and undoes the dichotomy of the village and traditional life versus the city and modernity. As Homi K. Bhabha emphasizes in his study The Location of Culture (New York: Routledge, 1994), migration creates a need ‘‘to think beyond nar- ratives of originary and initial subjectivities’’ (1). Li’s movement from daughter to wife to educated single parent to ‘‘the man of the house’’ to, prospectively, matriarch of her family shows the fluidity of identity; the integration of modern technology in the life of the village itself by the end of the novel also reflects the novel’s undoing of traditional dichotomies.
Alkali incorporates dreams as part of the structure of the novel, influencing action and presaging events. This innovation gives the novel a superficial sim- ilarity to the ‘‘magic realism’’ of Latin American fiction, but more significantly is part of a trend among younger African writers to move away from the stan- dards of Western realism to reflect the lived realities of African people. The dream images help the reader accept the outcome of events as peculiarly suited to the heroine. When Li dreams of her life as an old woman, dozing on the day of her great-granddaughter’s wedding, it reveals Li’s devotion to her family and presages her role as a matriarch, both of which make Li’s self-sacrifice and her determination to make her marriage work more understandable. In The Stillborn, Li supports her family from her earnings and at the end of the novel returns to her husband, determined to rebuild their relationship. Thus Alkali emphasizes women’s need for economic independence, but also the need for women to work with men to build a new society.
Dreams are also used as a structural device in her second novel, The Virtuous Woman, a novel for adolescents published in 1987. This novel is a shorter, morally pointed work, describing the perils of two young women returning to school by public transportation without an escort. Nana, careful and conserva-tive, finds a serious young man, while Leila, more impulsive, is still mistaking affection for romance at the end of the novel. Alkali has also published three short stories in German, ‘‘Salzlose Asche’’ (Saltless Ash), ‘‘Das eigene Lieben’’ (The Survivor), and ‘‘Haus des Schreckens’’ (House of Horror), one of which, ‘‘Saltless Ash,’’ has also been published in The Heinemann Book of African Women Writers (1993). Her third novel, The Cobwebs, is soon to be published. The Cobwebs reveals the maturing of the Nigerian woman and touches on ‘‘the evil of child-brides, the ill consequences of unemployment and child abuse’’ (Nwamuo interview, West Africa). As compared to her earlier work, The Cob- webs is broader and more mature; Alkali feels that it is her most important work to date.
Many African women writers disdain the term ‘‘feminist,’’ which has come to be narrowly defined as a Western idea of strict gender equality, or even a synonym for an anti-male stance. Alkali also rejects the term, as she distrusts any labels or ‘‘isms.’’ In her essay ‘‘Feminism, a Radical Theme in West Af- rican Literature,’’ Alkali calls for the development of a new feminism that would emphasize improving the socioeconomic and political status of women. Femi- nism would not focus on gender equality alone, but would struggle against cultural traditions, class privileges, and ‘‘mental colonialism’’ (the residue of Western sexism) that have prevented women’s progress. ‘‘Such a movement,’’ Alkali claims, ‘‘should involve everybody.’’ If the term ‘‘feminist’’ were re- defined in this way, Alkali asserts that African women writers, including herself, would be proud to declare themselves feminists.
CRITICAL RECEPTION
Seiyefa Koroye’s ‘‘The Ascetic Feminist Vision of Zaynab Alkali’’ is one of the few studies of Alkali’s works. Focusing exclusively on The Stillborn, Koroye emphasizes the self-sacrifice Alkali demands of her heroine, calling Li ‘‘a model of the heroic and truly liberated woman.’’ Alkali has been interviewed several times about her work; the most accessible interview is in Adeola James’s In Their Own Voices: African Women Writers Talk. In this interview, she mentions possible influences on her work from Chinua Achebe, Ngugiwa Thiong’o, Cath- erine Cookson, and Ernest Hemingway. She also discusses the difficulties of writing in English about characters who are speaking another language. Further critical studies of her work are needed, particularly comparisons with other Ni- gerian writers and with other writers from Muslim West Africa. Recently, Marie Umeh described Zaynab Alkali as one of Flora Nwapa’s ‘‘literary followers’’ (Umeh, 121) and also included her in a list of womanist writers, suggesting that her works will soon receive the critical attention they deserve.
In all of her work, Alkali offers a rare insight into life for Muslim women in northern Nigeria. Not content with simply showing how things are, Alkali also builds a vision of a better life based on economic independence, self-sacrifice, and solidarity between men and women.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Works by Zaynab Alkali
The Stillborn. Harlow, Essex: Longman Drumbeat Series, 1984. Republished in Longman African Classics, 1988.
The Virtuous Woman. Ikeja: Longman, 1987.
‘‘Salzlose Asche’’ (Saltless Ash), ‘‘Das eigene Leben’’ (The Survivor), and ‘‘Haus des Schreckens’’ (House of Horror). Salzlose Asche: Kurzgeschichten aus Nigeria. Ed. Lotta Suter. Zurich: Stechapfel Verlag, 1989. ‘‘Haus des Schreckens’’ is also included in A Voyage Around: Literatur aus Kamerun, Nigeria, Simbabwe. Berlin: Andenbuch: Arabische Buch, 1990.
‘‘The Nightmare,’’ ‘‘Saltless Ash,’’ and ‘‘Feminism: A Radical Theme in West African Literature.’’ Touchstone 15, African Women Write. Ed. Guida Jackson. Houston: Touchstone, 1990.
‘‘Landlicher Markt in Nigeria.’’ NZZ-Folio October 1992: 71–73.
‘‘Saltless Ash.’’ The Heinemann Book of African Women’s Writing. Ed. Charlotte Bruner. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1993.
The Cobwebs. Unpublished manuscript.
INTERVIEWS
Ibeleme, Emmanuel. ‘‘Women Writers Bag Top Fiction Prizes. ’’ New African 222 (March 1986): 49. Also interviews Tess Onwueme, on winning ANA awards (ANA fiction award for 1985 for The Stillborn).
James, Adeola. ‘‘Zaynab Alkali.’’ In Their Own Voices: African Women Writers Talk. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1990. 28–32.
Nwamuo, Chris. ‘‘Important . . . But Not the Same.’’ West Africa 3700 (July 11, 1988): 1256.
Ofeimun, Odia. Interview. Guardian (Lagos, Nigeria) March 27, 1985:9.
Studies of Zaynab Alkali
Bu¨rgi, Chidi. ‘‘Tra¨ume werde empfangen wie Kinder: Portra¨t der nigerianischen Schrifts- tellerin Zaynab Alkali.’’ WoZ 35.28 (August 1992): 17–18.
Galle, Etienne. ‘‘The Probable Young African Hero.’’ Commonwealth Essays and Studies 15.1 (Autumn 1992): 29–35.
Koroye, Seiyefa. ‘‘The Ascetic Feminist Vision of Zaynab Alkali.’’ Nigerian Female Writers: A Critical Perspective. Ed. Henrietta Otokunefor and Obiageli Nwodo. Ikeja, Nigeria: Malthouse Press, 1989
Umeh, Marie. ‘‘Finale: Signifyin’ the Griottes: Flora Nwapa’s Legacy of (Re)Vision and
Voice.’’ Research in African Literatures 26.2 (Summer 1995): 114–123.
Book Reviews
Obradovic, Nadezda. Review of The Stillborn. World Literature Today 64 (Spring 1990): 354.
Review of The Stillborn. Choice 29 (September 1991): 46.
Review of The Stillborn. Sunday New Nigerian January 12, 1986: 2.
© CHRISTINE LOFLIN
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