Writing Social Justice in Women’s Epistolary Fictions: Sade Adeniran, Hope Keshubi, & Myriam Warner-Vieyra

Abstract

This article examines how female writing narrators engage social issues. It looks at unjust inheritance laws in Going Solo (1997) by Ugandan author Hope Keshubi; child abuse in Imagine This (2007) by Nigerian-English author Sade Adeniran; and treatment of the mentally ill in Juletane (1987) by Guadaloupean-Senegalese author Myriam Warner-Vieyra. The female writing characters in these novels show diverse coping strategies in their writing, from surviving abuse in the safe space of imagination to trying to make peace with one’s enemy through writing; they use similes and metaphors to express and manage their pain. Intimacy established by the writing narrators’ literary techniques, such as similes, use of narratees, dreams and parables creates empathy and identification, elements essential for social justice.