非洲的女儿 (1992)

Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Words and Writings by Women of African Descent from the Ancient Egyptian to the Present is a compilation of orature and literature by more than 200 women from Africa and the African diaspora, edited and introduced by Margaret Busby, who compared the process of assembling the volume to "trying to catch a flowing river in a calabash".

First published in 1992, in London by Jonathan Cape (having been commissioned by Candida Lacey, formerly of Pandora Press and later publisher of Myriad Editions), and in New York by Pantheon Books, Daughters of Africa is regarded as a pioneering work, covering a variety of genres – including fiction, essays, poetry, drama, memoirs and children's writing – and more than 1000 pages in extent. Following Busby's Introduction – which opens with the Gwendolyn Brooks poem "To Black Women" – the book is arranged chronologically, beginning with traditional oral poetry, and it includes work translated from African languages as well as from Dutch, French, German, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

The anthology's title derives from an 1831 declaration by Maria W. Stewart (1803–1880), the first African-American woman to give public lectures, in which she said: "O, ye daughters of Africa, awake! awake! arise! no longer sleep nor slumber, but distinguish yourselves. Show forth to the world that ye are endowed with noble and exalted faculties."

A companion volume called New Daughters of Africa – with the subtitle "An International Anthology of Writing by Women of African Descent", and featuring a further 200-plus contributors from around the world born between the 1790s and the 1990s – was published in 2019. Associated with the anthology is the Margaret Busby New Daughters of Africa Award for a woman student from Africa.

Reception

Daughters of Africa was widely praised on publication. As described by Bernardine Evaristo in The Guardian in June 2020: "Bringing together fiction, poetry, memoir and essays, both books are an incredible introduction to black women’s writing from around the world, and feature every established name you can imagine, as well those who deserve to be better known."

Reviewing the anthology for Black British newspaper The Weekly Journal, Evie Arup wrote: "Daughters of Africa is a literary first. Never before has the work of women of African descent world-wide been gathered together in one volume. The breadth of this collection is startling.... This book should be required reading for any student of literature, and a standard reference book in school libraries, and, to paraphrase that well known slogan, 'every home should have one.'"

A reviewer from The Independent observed: "This book may seem to be about literature but in the end it is as much a testament to language: its power to create attitudes as well as its potency as a means of expression." Described by The Observer as a "glorious fat anthology that makes a history out of a selection, and puts an unsung group of people on the map", according to Library Journal, it is "an invaluable text for courses on women writers and writers of African descent", and Keneth Kinnamon in Callaloo saw it as "impressive", noting: "Brief headnotes and long bibliographies enhance the value of this important volume."

Lorna Sage in the Independent on Sunday concluded that "Daughters of Africa has a paradoxical universality", while The Washington Post Book World called it: "A magnificent starting place for any reader interested in becoming part of the collective enterprise of discovering and uncovering the silent, forgotten, and underrated voices of black women." The reviewer for Black Enterprise wrote: "It is a landmark anthology.... Busby's first-of-a-kind anthology is a poignant reminder of how vast and varied the body of black women's writing is." It has also been called "groundbreaking in its presentation and exposure of the work of female African writers", "one of the most significant assemblages of writers across the diaspora" and "the ultimate reference guide to the writing of 'daughters of Africa'".

The Times Literary Supplement review by Maya Jaggi stated: "With rare exceptions, anthologies of black writing and of women's writing have given the impression that there was very little literary endeavour by black women before the 1980s. Margaret Busby's impressive and imaginative selection of 'words and writings', Daughters of Africa, finally destroys that misconception, while tracing continuities within a tradition of women's writing, deriving from Africa yet stretching across continents and centuries."

Jaggi goes on to say: "Some writings (such as those by ancient Egyptian or Ethiopian queens) have been selected primarily for their historical significance, or to celebrate little-known landmarks of achievement. Most, however, have been chosen for their literary qualities, making the anthology a source of continual pleasure and surprise. (...) The cumulative power of this monumental and absorbing anthology stems from the clarity and vibrancy of the voices it assembles. While effectively dismissing the equation of oppression with 'voicelessness', it restores marginalized or isolated writers to the centre of their own rich, resilient and truly international tradition."

The anthology was included in Sacred Fire: "QBR" 100 Essential Black Books, which said: "Daughters of Africa is a monumental achievement because it is the most comprehensive international anthology of oral and written literature by women of African descent ever attempted. (...) The success of the collection is that it clearly illustrates why all women of African descent are connected by showing how closely related are the obstacles, the chasms of cultural indifference, and the disheartening racial and sexual dilemmas they faced. In so doing, the collection captures the range of their singular and combined accomplishments.