Black and Female by Tsitsi Dangarembga is out now from Jonathan Ball Publishers.

‘Being categorised as black and female does not constrain my writing. Writing assures me that I am more than merely blackness and femaleness. Writing assures me I am.’

This paradigm shifting essay collection weaves the personal and political in an illuminating exploration of internationally acclaimed novelist Tsitsi Dangarembga’s complex relationship with race and gender.

At once philosophical, intimate and urgent, Dangarembga’s landmark essays address the profound cultural and political questions that underpin her novels for the first time. From her experience of life with a foster family in Dover and the difficulty of finding a publisher as a young Zimbabwean novelist, to the ways in which colonialism continues to disrupt the lives and minds of those subjugated by empire, Dangarembga writes to recentre marginalised voices.

Black and Female offers a powerful vision toward re-membering – to use Toni Morrison’s word – those whose identities and experiences continue to be fractured by the intersections of history, race and gender.

About the author

Tsitsi Dangarembga is the author of three novels, including Nervous Conditions, winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and This Mournable Body, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2020. She is also a filmmaker, playwright, and the director of the Institute of Creative Arts for Progress in Africa Trust. She lives in Harare, Zimbabwe.

Categories Non-fiction South Africa

Tags Black and Female Jonathan Ball Publishers New books New releases Tsitsi Dangarembga