Abstract: In Tsitsi Dangarembga’s acclaimed 2018 novel This Mournable Body, representations of Black women’s bodies lay bare neoliberal myths of racial equality and economic progress. Set in Zimbabwe’s capital Harare in the 2000s, the novel explores narrator Tambudzai Sigauke’s experiences of misogynoir, poverty and poor mental health. This talk argues that in addition to revealing the difficulties of agency, Dangarembga imagines embodied forms of resistance, positioning the solidarity of community as an empowering alternative to neoliberal individualism. This talk is based on a chapter of a monograph-in-progress that traces how writers including Dangarembga, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Dionne Brand and Bernardine Evaristo shape global conversations about Black feminism and use their fiction to reimagine the possibilities of solidarity.
