Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions (1986) is an African female novel classic in the sense that it pioneered Zimbabwean female writings, and importantly because of the text’s attention to postcolonial challenges to not only Zimbabwean women represented in the story, but also African women in former colonies. In this work, I provide an introduction to reading and understanding the novel, which can also inform how we attend to the sequels: The Book of Not (2006) and This Mournable Body (2018). In all these novels, Tambudzai (Tambu) is the anti-hero (protagonst) who is double colonised by oppressive patriachy (culture) and colonialism and its legacies. I pay attention to formal aspect of the novel, and how peculiar narratological choices used by Dangarembga enable her to address the most pressing concerns of women in colonial Rhodesia, which remain relevant in contemporary times.

In these slides, I provide the grounding work to reading and analysing Carol Ann Duffy’s poetry collection, The World’s Wife. This resource can be used by English and Literature students and teachers in the IB Diploma program. Notably, I focus on the background of Duffy and its implication on her writings and feminist perspectives. The resource also delves on subversive feminism and counterfactuals, and how these theoretical areas enable Duffy to contest and challenge gendered norms, and critique the place and role of women in myths, legends, history and fiction. Also included in this work is Duffy’s technique as a poet in this collections. Styles such as allusion, counterfactualising, narration, vivid description, satire and humour, and their effect in subversion of gendered norms are elaborated.

This is a guide to ‘The Kray Sisters’ by Carol Ann Duffy from the collection of poetry, The Worlds’ Wife. I focus on subversion, allusion and counterfactualising as dominant styles, and how they enable Duffy to imagine and create strong female subjects that are capable of defending themselves and other disfranchised women as away of challenging oppressive patriarchy and its legacies as noted in the (hi)story of the Kray Twins.

This is a guide to reading and analysing Intan Paramaditha’s Apple and Knife within subversive and gothic feminist lenses to understand the global women’s concerns that she addresses in this collection.

This is a guide to reading and analysing Paramaditha’s ‘The Blind Woman withouta Toe’ from the collection, Apple and Knife. Empahsis is on gothic feminism and subversion, and how the author uses them challenge cultural and gendered norms and stereotypes of women’s bodies, and related perceptions (implications).

In these slide, i offer prerequisite grounding to reading and analysing Apple and Knife, that is essential to IB English and Literature students, both SL and HL. Importantly, I give an overview of how Gothic feminism, subversion and counterfactuals of existing narratives, myths, legends and history allow Intan Paramaditha to critique socially engineered gender inequalities and women’s issues.