SLAVERY AND AFRICANISM IN GAYL JONES‘’ NOVEL

Abstract

The Women’s Renaissance of the 1980s is often identified by its acknowledgement of the multiplicity of African-American identities and renewed interest in history and slavery. Authors associated with the black women’s movement include Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Paula Marshall among others. Gayl Jones (1949-), a southern novelist represented black women’s voices with no less intensity than her contemporary novelists referred earlier. She produced works in authentic black speech that have offended some readers but elicited admiration even from serious critics, including responsible members of the black community.

The study proposes to go into details of her novels how they become an emblem of life with a purpose to keep alive the history of their abuse and fortune, and by extension that of African slaves in the New World and an embodiment to “make generations’ that can testify to the brutal crimes of slavery and women’s obsession with the past burdens.