The Evolution of the “Other” Woman in Ousmane Sembene’s White Genesis

Abstract

Literary representations of women from an Islamic background are not often encountered in the works of fiction from West Africa. Yet, since it was first published in 1972, Ousmane Sembene’s White Genesis has been ignored in spite of its pioneering engagement with women’s psyche and the evolution of their lives in Senegalese Muslim society. The following attempts to place Sembene’s landmark narrative within the body of literary discourse about “other” women. It examines why Muslim women in particular are too often relegated to the margins of both society and of literary criticism and why they are continuously fossilized in certain attitudes in spite of evidence to the contrary. It goes on to explore Sembene’s unusual reconstruction the image of the Muslim woman and her subversion of expectations as she deals with the constraints of tradition and religion in her life.