The product of a decade of research, this landmark collection is the first of four volumes in the iWomen Writing Africai Project, which seeks to document and map the extraordinary and diverse landscape of African women's oral and written literatures. Presenting voices rarely heard outside Africa, some recorded as early as the mid-nineteenth century, as well as rediscovered gems by such well-known authors as Bessie Head and Doris Lessing, this volume reveals a living cultural legacy that will revolutionize the understanding of African women's literary and cultural production. pRanging from communal songs and folktales to letters, diaries, political petitions, court records, poems, essays, and fiction, these texts provide a vivid--and heretofore largely invisible--picture of African women's lives. Their work and families, their experience of the cruelty of colonialism and war, and their struggles for civil rights are described in voices from twenty original languages and six countries in