Paper long abstract:

Narratives of travel and theoretical discourse on the Diaspora and Black Atlantic often privilege male subjects, focusing on men who choose to travel in the case of the former or men who are forced to migrate in the case of the latter. How then do theories of the Diaspora and Black Atlantic relate to those who lack the resources to relocate or are not forcibly relocated, particularly the women who remain at home? In Southern Africa generally it is men who migrate as laborers or intellectual workers. Typically it is women who carry the responsibility of raising children and keeping family ties while waiting for their men to return, even if for short and infrequent visits. South African Lauretta Ngcobo's novel And They Did Not Die and Njabulo Ndebele's The Cry of Winnie Mandela, and Zimbabwean J. Nozipo Maraire's Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter and Yvonne Vera's The Stone Virgins illustrate how women keep, or attempt to keep, relationships and community in the face of migrations and across borders. This paper explores theories of Diaspora and the Black Atlantic in relation to the women in these texts. It focuses particularly on migrations in the area of the Matopos Hills and Bulawayo, Yvonne Vera's home and the setting for her novel The Stone Virgins.