BLACK AND FEMALE

158pp., hardback, d.w., London, 2022

A collection of essays by Zimbabwean novelist and filmmaker Tsitsi Dangarembga.

"I was born, then, into a vicious society that constructed me as essentially lacking full humanity, needing but never able, as a result of being black-embodied, to attain the status of complete human, This is the environment I was raised in. It is these malignancies, their foundations and their effect on my life and the lives of other black-embodied human beings that I trace in these essays." from page 14

"Urgent, compelling, blisteringly brilliant. This timely and elegant collection should be essential reading for anyone who cares about the aftermath of Empire - and that should be all of us. Tsitsi Dangarembga is one of the most powerful writers working today."  Sara Collins

"In this powerful nonfiction piece, [Dangarembga] undertakes a deep dive into the consequences of racism and misogyny on her development as an author, a thinker and a woman in the world ... As Dangarembga frames it, pain, anger, injustice and resilience can also be the starter fuel in the development of necessary personal drive, a creative viewpoint and transformative political power." Observer

"This is a great writer coming into being. It is as natural as the grass grows." Chinua Achebe

Tsitsi Dangarembga is the author of the novels, including Nervous Conditions (winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize), The Book of Not and This Mournable Body (shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize). She is also a filmmaker, playwright, and Director of the Institute of Creative Arts for Progress in Africa Trust. She lives in Harare, Zimbabwe.