Reconstructing Identities Through Resistance in Postcolonial Women’s Writing: A Reading of Ezeigbo’s The Last of the Strong Ones

Colonialism and its after-effects of neo-colonialism and postcolonialism pervade the male-dominated literary tradition produced on the African continent. Within the complexities of these realities, the African woman may be said to be “doubly colonized” and her burdens multiple. Imprisoned then, by the authoritative phalluses which define her daily experiences and which seek to negate the authentic image of the African woman, as writer, she is compelled to negotiate new sites in which she articulates more viable and acceptable self-images. Our study here is, specifically, on one such response: that of the Nigerian novelist, Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo, in her important work, The Last of the Strong Ones (TLSO, 1996). This novel is important in that it directs us to a new historicism and cultural critique. Articulated in three parts, the paper, in its introduction, attempts a definition of the indices of identity that circumscribe the lives of African women especially within the present-day postcolonial matrix. The second part demonstrates the novelist’s repudiations of stereotypes and her reconfigurations of women’s identities as part of the needful project to recover the distinctive tradition of African female stories (herstories). In the final part, we draw attention to the areas where women need to further interrogate and construct meaningful identities.