The Diary of an African Nun

The Diary of an African Nun Summary | The Diary of an African Nun Summary

This short story is written as a woman's six diary entries, all concerning her role as an African nun-that is, the wife of Christ. The first entry depicts how she is viewed by different nationalities that use the mission school as a hotel at night. All people are curious as to why a young and beautiful woman has become a nun. The Americans do not understand her humility, and they overly tip and smile at her; the Germans offer her praise, regard her as a primitive work of art and leer at her; the French find her charming; and the Italians hardly spare her a glance. The African nun sees herself as a wife of Christ, a celibate martyr and saint, and a wife of the Catholic church. She has spent all of her life in the same village that was "civilized" by missionaries, a village that is within walking distance from the mountains that are almost always covered in snow, except for in the spring.

The second diary entry recalls that when she was a girl, she looked up to and admired the nuns and priests at her school. Back then, she did not realize they could not have children, because they seemed so productive and passionate about their way of life. At age 20, she becomes a nun, which entails her wearing the white garb designated to nuns, hiding her femininity from the world. She compares the whiteness of the robe to the white snow on the mountains that surround her. She sees how boys she knew as a child treat her with gentle kindness. They are married now and she watches them kiss their children.

The third diary entry tells of her seven o'clock bedtime and how she hears the drumbeats outside her window and the festive chants around the fire. She implies that out there amidst the festivities, lovemaking will occur. The African nun longs to make love to her husband, Christ; she wants to lure him down from the sky where her impatient body awaits. She feels her passion is stifled underneath her nun's robes, which she again compares to snow. She questions if Jesus is less passionate than God, who had his son through Mary.

The fourth diary entry depicts in more detail what goes on outside her window every night. There is silence while they eat the freshly cooked goat's meat, tearing into it with their mouths and drinking wine. At midnight, a young girl dressed in black will join them, having decided to be like them. She will begin to dance and pick out her lover from a crowd; they will dance together and it will culminate into the ripping off of clothes and making love, forgetting the watching crowd.

The fifth diary entry reveals that the African nun is questioning the celibate and barren aspects of her marriage to God. She wonders if in heaven the joy of lovemaking and having babies is as intense and rewarding as it is on earth. She knows others would question whether she is truly converted and ask her if satisfying her carnal desires is worth giving up Christ. She knows if she answered honestly it would mean her having to wait another thousand years for her husband. However, she believes she would counter this argument with one of her own: the African nun would tell her husband that it is when the snow melts from the mountains in the spring that the mountains are most productive and of use for bearing fruit; people plant their crops in the soil of the mountain and it sustains them. The resulting crop is good and abundant.

The African nun sees parallels in her life: she with her childless marriage, as compared to the snow-covered mountains, useless, a waste to herself and others. If this is how it should be, then Christ is dead according to her way of thinking. This is because to her, barrenness represents death and only the devoutly faithful do not realize it. She knows that she will probably say and do nothing about her childless marriage to Christ and continue in his ministry, despite her contradictory belief that participating in life's dance may bear more fruit. She will continue in silence even though her heart longs for love and children. Her mission is to silence the dance of life on earth and focus people on how to die. She will turn lovers into dead men and babies into mere longings and sadness for women that occur when reminded of the renewal of life in the spring.

The sixth entry concisely sums up the African nun's life and duties: "In this way will the wife of a loveless, barren, hopeless Western marriage broadcast the joys of an enlightened religion to an imitative people."