Claiming selfhood: three black South African women writersunder apartheid

This dissertation is a study of the works of Miriam Tlali, Ellen Kuzwayo and Emma Mashinini, three Black South African Women Writers who wrote while living under the Apartheid System. The study focusses on the life narratives that are revealed in both fiction and non-fiction. The first chapter provides information showing the difiBculties involved in the writing, printing, publishing and marketing of their works. The rest of the study discusses how their texts are at the service of their communities and how the communities contribute to the individual identities developed in the writing. Black, female, selfhood needs to be retrieved from counter-history and counter-truths with special emphasis on gender issues. The study reveals that the authors are no longer willing to be marginalised for their race or their gender and the act of writing is part of their desire to provide voice and freedom to Black South Afiican women.