Furrowing Africa's Killing Fields.

My paper looks at how Côte d'Ivoirean Véronique Tadjo, in The Shadow of Imana and Zimbabwean Yvonne Vera, in The Stone Virgins, use the histories of two nations (Tadjo on the Genocide in Rwanda and Vera on the war for independence in Rhodesia followed by the terrorism and killings in Zimbabwe's Matabeleland) to critique patriarchy and the process of nationalism. When Vera writes that ‘A new nation needs to restore its past,’ this holds true not only for ‘Zimbabwe’ emerging from ‘Rhodesia,’ but all nations of sub-Saharan Africa. Within the contexts of both South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and ongoing ‘genocide trials’ in Rwanda, my paper looks at history and healing in Tadjo and Vera to discuss how African women writers confronting some of the most horrific events of the last century are pulling the humanities in an important direction. This direction is toward the material: the material of the body (especially the female body), the material land and the physical spaces we call ‘nation,’ the circulation of goods, and the signifiers we use to represent and understand events called ‘genocide’ and ‘war.’ [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]