<P> Donna Seaman writes of The Heinemann Book of African Women's Poetry, edited by Frank Chipasula and Stella Chipasula (1995): </P> <Dl> <Dd> The editors of this haunting anthology of poetry, both African - born poets themselves, have selected work by women poets from 18 African countries, from Algeria to Senegal, Mauritius and Zimbabwe . A historical note is struck by the anthology's oldest poem, an obelisk inscription composed by Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt, while a modern Egyptian poet, Andrée Chedid, epitomizes the dignity of the collection with her powerfully spare and provocative mediations . Unlike Queen Hatshepsut, most African women suffer tyranny, sexism and poverty and toil in silence and anonymity . Chedid writes, "Often from a point without place / I stifle my story / From past to future / I conjugate the horizon ." For many of these poets, the world is unrelentingly cruel, and they belie their vulnerability with stoicism . </Dd> </Dl> <Dd> The editors of this haunting anthology of poetry, both African - born poets themselves, have selected work by women poets from 18 African countries, from Algeria to Senegal, Mauritius and Zimbabwe . A historical note is struck by the anthology's oldest poem, an obelisk inscription composed by Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt, while a modern Egyptian poet, Andrée Chedid, epitomizes the dignity of the collection with her powerfully spare and provocative mediations . Unlike Queen Hatshepsut, most African women suffer tyranny, sexism and poverty and toil in silence and anonymity . Chedid writes, "Often from a point without place / I stifle my story / From past to future / I conjugate the horizon ." For many of these poets, the world is unrelentingly cruel, and they belie their vulnerability with stoicism . </Dd> <P> In 1986 Nigerian writer, poet and playwright, Wole Soyinka became the first post-independence African writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature . </P>

The development of modern african poetry from the colonial period till date