Womanism in Crépuscule du tourment: Mélancolie by Léonora Miano

Abstract

In this article we examine the notion of womanism as portrayed in the 2016 novel Crépuscule du tourment: Mélancolie (Twilight of Torment: Melancholy) by the Franco-Cameroonian author Léonora Miano . We explore how four female characters are subjected to discrimination on various levels: racial, sexist, and even linked to social divisions. We furthermore trace the religious, historical, cultural and sexual aspects of the identity crisis that each character undergoes. The tales by these four voices depicting their suffering and different defence strategies finally point to the womanism of the author herself which this article aims to discuss drawing on a range of definitions provided by scholars such as bell hooks, Molara Ogundipe-Leslie and Alice Walker. Our reading of the novel focusses on the mechanisms of resistance (exploration of homosexual relations, recourse to afrocentricity) deployed by these female characters in an environment where neither Western feminism nor activism seem to respond to the complexity of their alienation. Miano’s heroines attempt to reconstruct their identities in terms of culture, territory, the other and the “self”. Their revolt and courage to speak out constitute acts of self-determination. This emancipatory quest leads to a form of hybridity that embraces both modernity and traditional values, with its myths and customs, and which results in a reconstructed and plural identity. It also constitutes an approach by an African author that embraces both a return to the self and an openness to the outside world.