This critical study provides a comprehensive history of Cameroonian women's writing in French, using an anthropological approach to literature. This book seeks to define what is meant by contemporary "matriarchies" in African culture and to explore a variety of African feminisms as expressed through Cameroonian women's writings. In the introduction, numerous theories of African-defined "matriarchy" are examined; subsequent chapters give examples and explanations of how these contemporary matriarchies manifest themselves in the works of various writers.