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Empowerment or Delusion?: The Shona Novel and Women Emancipation

Summary One of the topical debates in Zimbabwe today has been how to extricate and raise women from the disparaged image and marginalised position they have held and continue to hold in society. Women, church organisations, legislators and writers continue to push for the emancipation of the female gender. Using the Africana Womanist literary theory, this article examines Shona writers’ contribution to the efforts by analysing what they perceive as women's problems, the underlying causes and the possible solutions. It focuses on Makayi's Makudo Ndomamwe (2004) and Mutasa's Sekai: Minda Tave Nayo (2005). The article observes that whereas the writers identify the nature of women's problems, they unfortunately fail to examine the real underlying causes to those problems and hence, the solutions they suggest do not satisfactorily tally with reality. In light of this, the hoped-for emancipation largely remains a pipe-dream.