Said the back of the book, "In the rapidly growing field of African literature in French, writing by women has largely been ignored. This book, the first comprehensive study of women’s writing in francophone sub-Sahara, redresses the critical imbalance and celebrates the originality of this fascinating new literature." This quote echoes similar voices sounded by many people about African women writers: "African literature has to be understood as a literature by African men, for interest in African literature has, with very rare exceptions, excluded women writers. The women writers of Africa are other voices, the unheard voices." Nicki Hitchcott, the author of Women Writers in Francophone Africa, quotes the above statement to support her observation of ignored African women writers, and even the fact that African themselves to themselves do not know each others work properly.

As a prelude to the above observations, why is it that some years ago some critics said it was too soon "to talk in terms of women’s writing in francophone Africa?" The problem lay partly in the level of literacy and partly the silencing of African women’s voices. For example, in Cote d’Ivoire, in 1978, three quarters of the adult population were illiterate. Even continent-wide in or before 1984 only around 50 titles of poetry and prose by African women were published. This trend is changing. Over the last two decades more African women are publishing than during the 1970s. Hitchcott cites the top French critic, Jacques Chevrier, by refusing to acknowledge the contribution of African women writers in French-speaking literary world, silenced their evolution. One other reason for the suppression of the growth of African women writers was the "inferiority quality" of their work, in the eyes of French men. Power determines everything—here "masculine" power. This has its roots in patriarchy and colonialism, which in the first place made it impossible for African women in general, and not necessarily French-speaking African women, to produce remarkable literature. Today, this is changing. Names like Mariama Ba, Aminata Sow Fall, Werewere Liking and Calixthe Beyala have received top academic articles, said the author. And more work is being published on francophone African women writers such as Assiba d’Almeida’s Francophone African Women Writers: Destroying the Emptiness of Silence (1994).

The above come into play from the way Hitchcott linked her nine chapters. Chapter one deals with the struggles of French-speaking African women to free themselves from male domination and their ensuing growth. This is more African-wide, though there attempts to keep the accent on francophone African women. Chapter two looks at the gradual evolution of these women writers as attempt to find a voice in the male dominated power structure. The author tells us the earliest work published by francophone African women occurred in 1958 by Marie-Claire Matip in her autobiography Ngonda and Therese Kuoh Moukoury’s Rencontries essentielles. Both were Cameroonians. Generally, the chapter is an overview of French-speaking African women literary production in Sub-Sahara Africa from 1958 to the 1990s. Chapter three explores the romantic fiction by francophone African women not necessarily of the popular culture of the Western kind but, as some critics maintain, "protest ‘against our man-made world." Discussed here are works by Therese Kuoh Moukoury, Akissi Kouadio and Ami Gad.

Chapter four is more autobiography of women in francophone sub-Sahara Africa. After discussing many strands of autobiographical writings including the equation between feminism and individualism, the author indicates that "autobiographical texts will denote those first-person narrator and protagonist." Chapter five to eight focus on four individual francophone African women writers: Mariama Ba, Aminata Sow Fall, Werewere Liking, and Calixthe Beyala. Chapter nine discusses African francophone female writers in search of themselves. Said the back of the book, "Considering questions of genre and ideology, the author highlights the tension between the individualistic act of writing and the collective tradition of African society—a tension which emerges as the key to each of the texts discussed."

Nicki Hitchcott teaches at the University of Nottingham, U.K. She says her book will reinforce some writers view that the late 1990s have proved that "African literature is no longer a male domain" and that the African women’s fiction are struggles to enter the public space, more especially voices of women in francophone Africa.