‘But I Am Only Fourteen’: A Tale of Turns Sharing of the Dilemmas of Girlhood in Contemporary African Fictions Reflecting Truths

Ezinwanyi E. Adam () and Omoteniola R. Otun ()
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Ezinwanyi E. Adam: Babcock University
Omoteniola R. Otun: Babcock University

Chapter Chapter 12 in African Feminist Girlhood Studies and Development, 2025, pp 223-243 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Adam and Otun bring essential attention to the important role contemporary African fictions play as a tool for presenting and representing African girl’s dilemmas in living through nuanced and knotty impositions on their identities by her cultural and societal norms. In this chapter the authors explore the implications of literary depiction of African girlhoods and offer a much-needed analysis based on a close reading of Marilyn Heward Mills’ Cloth Girl, Lola Shoneyin’s The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives, Peniel Okwuchukwu’s Whispered Screams, and Leila Aboulela’s Minaret. Though fictional, characters in these works provide powerful insights into the diverse realities girls’ living in Africa face through the authorship of writers who grew up in different countries in Africa.

Keywords: Cloth Girl; Identity; Literature; Mills; Minaret; Okwuchukwu; Shoneyin; Whispered Screams (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:gdechp:978-3-031-91561-1_12

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-91561-1_12

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