Calixthe Beyala
Born in Douala, Cameroon, in 1961, Cameroonian-French Sub-Saharan francophone writer Calixthe Beyala was the sixth of twelve children. She was raised in a ghetto by her sister and witnessed the poverty and exploitation of children and women firsthand. She moved to Paris at the age of 17 and published her first novel at 26. “One of the few African authors who can boast of making a living from writing” and “one of the most prolific of younger West African writers,” Beyala publishes a novel every two years. Advocating for women and children in her writing and living, her works offer an original perspective on the manner in which society attempts to influence women’s conception of the female body and identity, and her narratives propose unique, if somewhat radical and militant, responses to the situation into which women find themselves in traditional African society. Beyala’s books are written from a distinctly feminist viewpoint, frequently concentrating on the problems African women and children face in male-dominated societies. She is “hailed as the precursor of a new literary movement of writers born after independence” and praised as being “one of the most provocative women writers of her generation.”
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