FEMINIST RECONFIGURATIONS OF INFERTILITY IN CONTEMPORARY NIGERIAN FICTION: A STIWANIST READING OF ADEBAYO AND SHONEYIN'S NARRATIVES
This study examines how contemporary Nigerian women writers reconfigure the discourse on infertility through feminist literary strategies, transforming reproductive failure from a site of social death into a catalyst for feminist consciousness. Through STIWANIST's theoretical analysis of Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀'s Stay with Me (2017) and Lola Shoneyin's The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives (2010), this paper argues that these novels subvert patriarchal conceptions of womanhood as synonymous with motherhood, offering alternative models of female identity and agency. Employing close textual analysis and feminist literary criticism, the research demonstrates how these authors deploy narrative strategies that expose the gendered hypocrisy of infertility stigma while proposing emancipatory frameworks rooted in African cultural resources. The findings contribute to postcolonial feminist literary criticism by illustrating how STIWANISM provides culturally grounded tools for analysing reproductive discourse in African contexts.
Keywords: STIWANISM, Nigerian literature, infertility, feminist criticism, reproductive discourse, and postcolonial feminism.