A Feminist Review of John Dramani Mahama’s My First Coup D’etat: Memories from the Lost Decades of Africa

Abstract

This essay examines the portrayal of women in John Dramani Mahama’s My First Coup D’etat: Memories from the Lost Decades of Africa (2012). The essay contends that subtly My First Coup D’etat expresses ideas of patriarchy, misogyny and masculinity. A feminist reading of work pays attention to images, themes, expressions, motifs and many other factors that are embedded in the text. An examination of the portrayal of women in male narratives is a worthwhile exercise as it helps establish gender ideologies for female empowerment. A paper like this stretches the dimension of psycho-critical literary studies which pays attention to the interplay between consciousness and unconsciousness in life narratives. Life narratives is an accumulation of layered propositions, interpretation of which are discernible by critical literary studies, like this research paper.