The ritual of silence in African fiction on sexual abuse : yvonne vera's under the tongue(1996) and calixthe beyala's your name shall be tanga (1996) and achmat dangor's bitter fruit (2001)

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West and South African fiction try to subvert the false image of the female body victimized by gendered violence. Yvonne Vera's Under the Tongue, Calixthe Beyala's Your Name shall be Tanga and Achmat Dangor's Bitter Fruit deliberately exceed beyond the limits of the literary work to convey stories of utter destruction in which the body represents the locus for a 'rape culture,' practiced to oppress and denigrate women's sense of agency in the patriarchal society. Their narratives of trauma accentuate the amount of damage silently undergone as their protagonists fail to break the taboo of their sexual transgression. Under the Tongue and Your Name shall be Tanga deal with children's incestuous rape and prostitution respectively, reflecting this cultural crisis in Zimbabwe and Cameroon. Achmat Dangor in Bitter Fruit denounces rape by making the break of silence a political issue, best evoked in post-apartheid South Africa where victims refuse to disclose their trauma in front of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This dissertation investigates the 'ritual' of silence of sexual abuse in Africa as writers try to narrate the images of pain and fragmentation that accompany the violent sexual assault on the female body. Beyond their erotic style and metaphors of escape, they emphasise the possibility of women to rebel using the language of words to break the taboo surrounding their sexuality.