Ellen Banda-Aaku, Patchwork

Stewart Crehan (University of Zambia)

Ed. by Helen Rachel Cousins, Newman University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 7.2.3.03: South Africa and other Southern Writing and Culture.
Vol. editors: Helen Rachel Cousins (Newman University), David Firth (University of Manchester)

Dates

First circulation or publication 2011

Places

Zambia (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Ellen Banda Aaku’s novel Patchwork, which won the Penguin Prize for African Writing in 2011, marks a new level in Zambian fiction, which is still little known beyond its borders. [Unlike Zimbabwean fiction and Malawian poetry (see Note).] Four factors are at play. First, the author belongs to a growing African literary diaspora (she currently resides in Kent, and has a Zambian-Ghanaian married name). Second, she belongs to a growing number of university-educated African women writers, middle-class professionals who give us an insider’s view into what it is like to be a woman (or, in Patchwork, a young girl) in a male-dominated African world. Third, rather than well-trodden themes such as race and c…

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1663 words

Citation: Crehan, Stewart. "Patchwork". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 November 2020 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=39163, accessed 25 April 2024.]

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