Ethics and Human Rights in Anglophone African Women’s Literature

‘A remarkable work, both for its compassion and critical insights, Chielozona Eze’s Ethics and

Human Rights in Anglophone African Women’s Literature: Feminist Empathy ‘liberates’ empathy


from ideology and offers a focused way of reading literature within and across borders that also


transcends limiting contexts.’ –Maik Nwosu, University of Denver, USA



‘In a thus far unsurpassed “sharing of affect,” Professor Eze artfully deploys what he calls

“feminist empathy” for third-generation Anglophone African women writers. In the wake of

their foremothers’ rejection of the double yoke of colonialism and patriarchy, this millennial


generation of women writers reclaims “a body of their own” and its unaccountable pain.


Eze’s bold yet gentle gesturing towards these new female subjectivities makes him a male

feminist, definitely a rare commodity on the Nigerian scene. His book is a high risk/high gain

venture opening wide the portal of “human flourishing” for other African empathizers in the

post-nation-state.’ –Chantal Zabus, author of Between Rites and Rights: Excision in Women’s


Experiential Texts and Human Contexts, Université Paris 13 – Sorbonne Paris Cité, France




‘Eze deftly demonstrates how contemporary African writing by women deploys feminist


empathy to link ethics and human rights in a fresh interpretation of ubuntu — the African


philosophy of individual and community interdependence. With nuance and a rare attention to

not only fiction but also poetry, essays and new media, Eze shows how recent works extending

longstanding African feminist theories into new territory, proving Adichie and her sister-authors

right: we should all be feminists.’ –Tsitsi Jaji, author of Africa in Stereo: Modernism, Music and


Pan-African Solidarity and Associate Professor of English, Duke University, USA




This book proposes feminist empathy as a model of interpretation in the works of contemporary


Anglophone African women writers. The African woman’s body is often portrayed as having


been disabled by the patriarchal and sexist structures of society. Returning to their bodies

as a point of reference, rather than the postcolonial ideology of empire, contemporary


African women writers demand fairness and equality. By showing how this literature deploys


imaginative shifts in perspective with women experiencing unfairness, injustice, or oppression

because of their gender, Chielozona Eze argues that by considering feminist empathy,

discussions open up about how this literature directly addresses the systems that put them

in disadvantaged positions. This book, therefore, engages a new ethical and human rights

awareness in African literary and cultural discourses, highlighting the openness to reality that is

compatible with African multi-ethnic, multi-racial, and increasingly cosmopolitan communities.