Portraits of female resistance to migration and polygamy in Fatou Diome's Those Who Wait

Abstract

This article explores the structures of relationships and resistance of the women portrayed in the novel Las que aguardan by Fatou Diome. In the absence of their children or husbands who immigrated to Europe in search of the promise of progress, four women await their return, in a society marked by suprafamilial networks and polygamy. These portraits, which, from fiction, invite reflection on situations of female poverty, abandonment or neglect, also show the formalization of Diome's diasporic writing. As will be analyzed, the novel is constructed through the textual hybridization of elements of African oral literature and the French language. It will thus be studied how, through the focus on the female subjects of the story and the use of their forms of speech, the cracks of the dumbing down of migration or the tensions generated by the polygamous system are unveiled, giving voice to multiple perspectives on the context of analogous communities outside the narrative frame.