Semester 2 (LM)

Illustrated history of African literature written in French expression (Letters

Modern

LICENSE OF MODERN LITERATURE Semester 2

Course of Abbé Ernest Ouoba

Email: [email protected]
30 hours

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INTRODUCTION

For a long time, the idea of a black Africa without culture has occupied the pages of
several works. The non-existence of an African culture justified the non-existence of a
literature. Indeed, literature was perceived in its written form. But many
writings have shown that before written literature, there existed an oral literature. Writing
is therefore not the only condition for the existence of literature. In this course,
We will focus on written literature, and more specifically on African literature.
written. The latter was formed through encounters with other civilizations: Arab-
Muslims and Judeo-Christian. It exists and particularly forms a set.
of works written in European languages (French; English, Portuguese, etc.) We
we will be interested in the conditions for the emergence of this literature, the genres, the authors,

to the different literary movements, etc. But first of all, we will dedicate some
pages with Eurocentric ideology.

From Eurocentrism to the recognition of Black art

1.1. Eurocentrism

Since Claudius Galen (around 131-201), a derogatory imagery of the Black has been held.
important place in popular traditions. This Greek physician defines the Black as
a hilarious being with an excessively long sex. The color black has long been the
color of the night, of everything that is underground, of the underworld, it is the color
of mourning. Throughout history, these beliefs will guide illustrious minds.
Montaigne (1533-1592), when speaking of the Negroes, presents them as cannibals.
The imagery of the Black turns into racism Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (1816-1882) in his
book titled Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races. It opposes white rationality
(higher quality) than the black one (lower quality). African art is considered as
primitive art, of no interest, and the sculptures, statues, masks are objects of
devil, of paganism.

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 German classical philosophy joins the debate on the nature of man
black through two major figures: Hegel (1770-1831) and Kant (1724-1804). In its
Lessons on the philosophy of history, Hegel writes: "Africa proper, also
far back in history, has remained disconnected from the rest of the world. It is the country of
the gold, folded in on itself, the land of childhood, which, beyond the day of history
consciousness is wrapped in the black color of the night." He continues: "what we
we understand in sum under the name of Africa, it is that which has no history and is not
not yet hatched, what is still completely enclosed in the natural spirit." His colleague
Emmanuel Kant makes this contribution: "A humid heat is generally
favorable to the growth of animals. This is how the Negro is seen to appear,
adapted to its climate, namely, strong, fleshy, and agile, but due to the abundance
material benefits of his native country, is still lazy, soft and frivolous.
One could multiply quotes up to a recent period on passivity and
the ignorance of Blacks, beings living in a natural order where injustice is the rule
of beings prone to cowardice. From this observation, the black man cannot be a creator of
Culture. It cannot have literature. It took the recognition of cultures.
and black civilizations to challenge the imagery of Noir soaked in ink of
Eurocentrism.

1.1. The contribution of ethnologists in the enhancement of cultures

African

Leo Frobenius (1873-1938), Maurice Delafosse (1830-1926), Germaine

Dieterlen (1903-1999), Marcel Griaule (1898-1956), Georges Balandier (1920-2016),
go beyond Eurocentric theories and highlight the diversity and richness of
African cultural values.
Leo Frobenius undertook several journeys in Africa. He dedicated the entry of
Africa on the international stage. Léopold Sédar Senghor will pay tribute to it in these
No one better than him revealed Africa to the world and Africans to themselves.
It is with Leo Frobenius more than anyone else that we discovered the notions
as emotion, art and myth.

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 Later, African researchers will take over to carry the torch high.
of African cultures and civilizations. This particularly concerns Cheick Anta Diop.
(1923-1986), Théophile Obenga, born in 1936 and still alive, Joseph Ki-Zerbo (1922-
2006), and many others. These authors will carry out a true revolution in
the Negro-African historiography that will give its nobility to African culture.
The works of these authors confirm the diversity of African cultures and
the expression of this culture in a literature with oral content.

1.2. The Black Art

Masks, sculptures, and African statuettes were regarded as

relevant to paganism. But here it is that between 1905 and 1907, a group of painters and
Artists discover with wonder the African statuette and mask. The Mercury
from France and the Action Review resonate widely. Numerous exhibitions are
held in Europe and the United States. In Paris, the first will be organized in 1919 at the
Devambez Gallery. The discovery of black art has repercussions on painting.
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Henri Matisse (1869-1954) and many others are inspired by it.
to create cubism.

2. Socio-historical context of the emergence of literature

African written

The 1920s-1930s marked the entry of Africa onto the literary scene.
It is the period when Western democracies are put to the test by several
factors. Among them, we can mention the great economic crisis of 1929 that shook
America and many European countries, notably England and France. The
The October Revolution of 1917 sparked great hopes as an alternative model.
for peoples who are in love with justice and freedom. But by the end of the 1920s, these hopes
begin to dull with the rise of regimes on the international stage
fascists in Germany and Italy. In Africa, the peoples still lived under the
colonial domination. In the United States, Black people are victims of racial segregation.
All these facts will contribute to a raising awareness among Africans in general and of

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Blacks in particular. In their struggle against colonization and racial segregation, they
will draw from the sources of Marxism and Surrealism.

2.1. The Negro Renaissance

It is a movement of revolt created in 1905 by Negro intellectuals.

Africans descendants of black slaves. It had its theorists and its writers, including
the works have influenced Caribbean and African activists.
Washington Booker demonstrates that a Black man is worth just as much as a White man, provided that

receive an equal education. He succeeded in establishing the first school

professional for Blacks in the state of Alabama, the most hostile to the black race. He writes:
"It was for us to prove that it was possible for the black race to create a
establishment of instruction and education and to lead it properly. Failing was
to strike a blow against the entire black race. Everything was against us.
In the 1920s, Harlem became the focal point of expression for black genius.
The theater, jazz, poetry, and dance reach their peak. The awareness
of the Blacks of their originality and their personality marks the beginning of the renaissance
black.
The expression of this rebirth is evident in the works of Countee Cullen.
Claude Mackay, Langston Hughes, and James Weldon. These authors condemn the
racism, the violence in which America was immersed. James Weldon writes: "We,
creators of the new black generation, we want to express our personality without
shame and fear. If it pleases the Whites, we are very happy. If it does not please them
please not, no matter. We know that we are beautiful and ugly too. The tam-tam
Weep, the tam-tam laughs. If this pleases the colored men, we are very much
happy. If they don't like it, it doesn't matter. It's for tomorrow that we are building
the temples. Solid temples as we know how to build and we stand
dressed at the top of the mountain, free within ourselves.
The works of authors like Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Countee
Cullen becomes the bedside books of African and Caribbean authors living in France.
Claude Mac Kay's book titled Banjoconstitutes a critique of society
American. The novelist rebels against the morals of a society that rejects him. He

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he notes that there is a fundamental contempt for the black people in France. According to him, in this

In the country, as everywhere, a criminal is black and all blacks are criminals. The blacks
they themselves ended up internalizing his prejudices. For example, the Caribbean person despises
the African who is more black than him.
In addition, it is necessary to mention the actions of other authors engaged against segregation.
racial in the United States: William Burghardt Du Bois created the Association for Defense
men of color with an organ of expression and struggle (The Crisis). In the
same perspective, Marcus Garvey founded the Come Back Africa movement and his
The Negro World.

2.2. The birth of written African literature

The birth certificate of this literature was signed by Jean Paul Sartre in his
preface 'Black Orpheus' to the Anthology of New Black and Malagasy Poetry
French language. Jean Paul Sartre asserts that those who read these poems will know for
the first time that the blacks addressed blacks. Many researchers
draw inspiration from the preface of Jean Paul Sartre to make poetry the first genre of
African written literature.
But it should be noted that the first novel entitled Batouala, by René Maran, was
written in 1920. The first short story, titled 'On the Path to Salvation', was written
Also in 1920, Léopold Sédar Senghor described Batouala as the ancestor of
African novel. But it should be emphasized that before the publication of Batouala, there existed some

colonial novels about Africa. In these novels, the African continent is often
presented as a humid tropical rainforest, infested with wild animals and insects
pests, or like a desert where cannibalism and the heat reign. This is the case
Journey to the End of the Night by Louis Ferdinand Céline, and In the Land of Bob by René

Hubert.

2.3. The reviews

2.3.1. The Review of the Black World

It was created by Dr. Léo Sajous, a Haitian, and the sisters Jeanne Andrée.
and Paulette Nardal. It was published from November 1931 to April 1932 in French and English.

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(namely 6 numbers). The objectives of creating this journal can be summarized as
suit
✓ to give the intellectual elite of the race and to the friends of Black people an organ
to publish their artistic, literary, and scientific works;
✓ study and promote everything related to black civilization and the
natural riches of Africa, thrice sacred part of the black race;
✓ to create an intellectual and moral link among Black people around the world.
The Black World Review published articles concerning black consciousness:
the equality of races, the mental interiority of Blacks, racism in the United States of America
and the situation of Black people in Cuba.

This review allowed intellectuals like Léopold Sédar Senghor, Léon

Gontran Damas, Aimé Césaire, Etienne Léro, René Maran, to meet poets from
the Negro Renaissance and eminent personalities of the black world.
Leo Frobenius collaborated with this journal. There were few writings on the Antilles.
We understand why a break occurred within the group. This break has
dedicated to the birth of another magazine.
2.3.2. Legitimate defense
This review appears on the 1sterJune 1932. It is the work of young students.
Martiniquans living in Paris. With the exception of Etienne Léro, all other collaborators
of this review are mulattoes. They belonged to the bourgeoisie they criticized. They
They have as masters Karl Marx, Arthur Rimbaud, André Breton, Sigmund Freud.
They declare war on "the abomination of love," referred to as
Western civilization. They attack the Antillean bourgeoisie and express their refusal
values of capitalism.
The influence of this magazine went beyond the circle of the Antilleans and reached Africa and
African students in particular. The struggle of this black elite took place in the countries
French expression through emblematic figures such as Léopold Sédar
Senghor, Aimé Césaire and Léon Gontran Damas who will develop the movement of
Negritude and African Presence. Self-defense had only one issue. The
reasons that explain its end are: lack of funds, threats
governmental and the suppression of scholarships.

University College ofIllustrated

Arts and Course
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in the
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Literature in French Expression Page 7
 2.3.3. The Black Student
This review, which was initially called L'Etudiant martiniquais, raised issues as early as 1932.

problems that concerned students, particularly the payment of scholarships and

assistance. Aimé Césaire is appointed president of the association that publishes this journal. The
the merit of L'Etudiant Noir is having been able to bring together African and Caribbean students and

to engage in the fight against colonization.

Léon Gontran Damas writes: "The Black Student, a corporate combat journal, has
to aim for the end of the tribalization of the clan system in place in the Latin Quarter.
One stopped being essentially Martiniquan, Guyanese, Guadeloupean students.
African, Malagasy, to be just one and the same black student.
The black student becomes a flagship magazine that will carry the ideal of Negritude.
In the first issue of this magazine, Aimé Césaire takes up a scenario of Legitimate
defense :

One day, the Negro seized the White man's tie, grabbed a hat
melon and left laughing. It was just a game. But the Negro let himself be caught.
to the game. He became so accustomed to the tie and the bowler hat that he eventually
believe that he had always worn them. He mocked those who did not carry them.
Point and Renia, his father who is named Spirit of the Bush.

3. Negritude

3.1. Origin and content of Négritude

Of all the definitions that can be given to this word, we will retain the idea
community that is the expression of particular black cultural values.
For Aimé Césaire, Negritude is the simple recognition of the fact of being black.
The acceptance of the fact of our destiny as black people, of our history and our culture.
For Senghor, it is the sum of the values of civilization of the black world.
expression of the black man of which he defines the characteristics on an ontological level: a
being emotional, intuitive, humanistic, having a higher spirituality.

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 For Léon Gontran Damas, Negritude can be defined as a rejection of the
cultural civilization, of a certain image of the Black unable to build a
civilization.
The famous French critic, Jacques Chevrier gives four principles that
constitute the foundation of Négritude:
✓ Negritude is the means of expression of an oppressed race. Like everything
natural element that reacts to pressure, the Blacks having undergone
Expressions of slavery and colonization should logically
react. Négritude thus appears as a reaction to the
sufferings;
✓ Négritude is the expression of an original way of being. Having been
constraints of rejecting their culture, Africans consider Négritude
as a way to prove that they have a cultural uniqueness.
Senghor writes in this regard: 'We first had to rid ourselves of
our borrowed clothes, those of assimilation, and affirm our being
like our blackness;
✓ Négritude is a tool of struggle against colonization;
✓ Négritude is an aesthetic tool. Through Négritude, the
African intellectuals wanted to show their ability to move everything
reader and to show that the Black is capable of expressing beauty.
The emotion evoked by Senghor becomes an aesthetic tool specific to culture.
African, suitable for the black man. From his thoughts, it emerges that emotion is black.
as reason is Hellenic. The ideas that Negro-Africans would have a
particular spirituality in relation to the materiality of the European and endowed with a
intuitive thought, it would grant them access to true knowledge prescribing them a role
messianic in history. Regarding the nature of our societies, Senghor writes: "The
European society is a society of division, of dichotomy, while ours are
of holding companies, of communion." Aimé Césaire agrees with this sentiment:
Our societies were community societies. They were societies
democratic, corporate societies, fraternal societies." Léon Gontran
Damasne also does not fail to fulfill his duty as a writer, which is to present

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the future of his people in a better light. He condemns cultural annihilation and that
is readable in the following sentences taken from his work Pigment:
I feel ridiculous.
In their shoes
In their tuxedos
In their breastplate
In their false collar
In their monocle
In their melon
Elsewhere, he writes:
Hands on the table
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit

You needed to speak French

The French of French
The French French.
Léon Gontran Damas is virulent in his critique of the education that aimed to make
of a Frenchman, to deny his quality as a full African. In his poem titled
"Know how to live," he writes:
Let me yawn
There
On the heart
To the obsession with everything to which

I turned my back for just one day.

The verb to yawn denotes, not a socially prohibited behavior, but a
openly claimed attitude of denial. This, thanks to the expression 'The hand on
the heart.

3.2. The critique of Négritude

Some African authors do not idealize Negritude. One of the critiques

issued against this theory is that of the Beninese Stanislas Spero Adotevi in his work
Négritude, Négrologue. He refuses to make black people similar beings as does

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Senghor. The Senghorian theory sinks into metaphysics. According to him, as long as the
The black man will not be involved in his people's struggle as long as he refuses to betray his
masters, he will make Négritude. He will be a negrologist, a negrophile, he will engage in negritation.
In fact, he criticizes Senghor for not being in tune with his ideas. In truth, the
the problem of Negritude lies in the fact that it sought to make the black race a
a race endowed with superior knowledge, gifted with humanistic, intuitive faculties and
emotional, whereas in life, Black people do not resemble each other. Only the color of
skin the units.
The South African Ezéchiel Mphalele wrote about this: "who is so stupid
which denies that Negritude was both a rejection as well as a positive affirmation of
African cultural values... what I cannot accept is the way a sector
too important is the poetry that draws inspiration from it, makes Africa a romantic country,
symbol of innocence, purity, and naive primitivism. I feel insulted when
Some claim that Africa is not a land of violence.
Aimé Césaire, one of the architects of Négritude, accepts this affirmation of the south-

African. Interpellated by the atrocities and horrors of the regime of François Duvalier at
Haiti, he raises this heartfelt cry: "I refuse in the name of Negritude to be the brother of
François Duvalier
Négritude cannot be a foundation for the development of culture
African, estimates Joseph Ki-Zerbo. But he acknowledges that Negritude will still have its say.
as long as black people feel humiliated as a race.
Some thinkers accuse the passivity of the authors of Negritude. The Nigerian
Wole Soyinka quips to Senghor: "The tiger does not proclaim its tigerness, it
jumps on its prey and eats it." Therefore, action is needed.
Senghor responds to this jest in these terms: "The essence of the zebra is to
to wear one's stripes, just like the Negro wears his blackness.
Authors like Cheick Amidou Kane have claimed that they were sowing
the term 'Négritude' because we do not know what we are putting into it. Sembene Ousmane qualifies

the Senghorian Négritude of 'the weakness of the man from our place'.

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 4. Literary production between the two wars

4.1. The novel

Lucien Goldman considers that the novel is the invention of writers for
translate the realities of their society in full mutation, thanks to discoveries
scientists. The novel is considered as the property of European societies, this
that African intellectuals refuse.
AlexisStéphane defines the novel as a mode of expression for writers.
They invented to express their dreams and their realities. The birth of the novel implies:
✓ The existence of novelistic potentialities (tales, proverbs, myths,
etc.) ;
✓ The age of the novel: the culture of a people reaches this age when the
novel potentials manage to form cycles that are connected
among them. Africa had reached this age. Thus, in the tales, we
we have the cycles of the hare, the hyena, the turtle, etc.;
✓ The novel proper: to give rise to the novel as a genre
literary, the literature of the peoples must stop being oral, verbal,
to be written. Writing arrived in Africa through the
The West. It translates African realities.
Considered as the genre most distant from the African tradition, some
Critics have estimated that the Western novel is well adapted to the African context.
4.1.1. Batoualade René Maran
Léopold Sédar Senghor referred to René Maran as "the ancestor of the novel".
African" because for the first time, an African was speaking on behalf of his
group to translate its essential realities.1But who is René Maran?
He was born in Martinique in 1887, but he is of Guyanese origin. He spent his childhood
and his adolescence in France. After his studies in Bordeaux, he began a career
in the colonial administration in French Equatorial Africa. He fulfills his task

1It is worth recalling that before the publication of Batouala, there were colonial novels such as Voyage au
Night's End by Louis Ferdinand Céline.

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without negligence. He discovered the environment in which he worked. A cultured man of integrity, he

do not take long to feel ambiguity in working as a civil servant in

the colonial administration. As a man of color, probably a descendant of
slaves, he could not condone injustice. He is torn by his personality as a man of
color in love with justice and the demands of the colonial administration whose purpose is to
serve the metropolis. The contradiction he experiences finds a solution in writing. At
After a few years of work, Batouala testifies for its author of a taking of
lucid conscience of his condition as a Negro in the French colonies.
The novel Batouala is of great literary quality. René Maran places himself in
the perspective of naturalist writers like Emile Zola. Witness to life
daily life in a village of Oubangui Chari, the author makes us discover the
moments of joy and sorrow of its inhabitants. It introduces us to their way of life and their
traditions. Under his pen, one discovers a dislocated society, subjugated Blacks,
dedicating themselves notably to alcohol and sometimes preferring death in order to join the

ancestors. Through this last action, they want to be away from this colonial society that
chosified. The position defended by René Maran is that of a humanism concerned with
preserve Black values, to defend Black African dignity.
Despite his allegiance to the Republic, his novel was censored by
the colonial administration that prohibited its dissemination in Africa, but Batouala became the
free from African intellectuals. According to Senghor, the whole black novel comes from René
Maran, whose author is named Ferdinand Oyono, André Demaison, etc. After
Batouala, we can no longer make the Negroes live, work, cry, laugh, talk like
of the Blacks. It will no longer be a matter of making them speak broken French, but Wolof, Malinke,
ewondo, in French.
René Maran believes he has shown the Blacks as they were. He emphasizes life
daily life of blacks. The preface of his work clearly shows his commitment alongside
of his people:

This region was very rich in rubber and very populated. Plantations
all kinds covered its expanse. It was full of chickens and
cabris. Seven years were enough to ruin it completely. The plantations

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 have disappeared. Goats and hens have been wiped out... The natives saw the
disease settles among them, famine invades them, and their numbers decrease

René Maran asks his brothers to echo his testimony 'I you
Come on, he said, the fight will be tight. You will face slave traders. It will be harder for you.
to fight against them." These words from the author are an invitation to fight against a system of
domination.
Despite the criticisms made against René Maran, the quality of his writing has been
recognized by the panel of judges of the Goncourt Prizes, which awarded her the prize of the year
1921. This attribution raised violent reactions. Some quickly took it upon themselves to consider.
Batouala as a work of hate by titling: "Batouala or the Calumny". The newspaper
The colonial Dépêche of December 26, 1921, estimates that the French Academy has committed
a wrongful act.
4.1.2. Karimd’Ousmane Socé
Ousmane Socé is the pseudonym of Ousmane Socé Diop. He is originally from
Senegal where he was born in 1911. He is trained as a veterinarian. His novel Karima was
published in 1935 by the Nouvelles Éditions Latines.
The action of the novel takes place in the urban centers of Dakar and Saint Louis.
The novel deals with the lives of young achievers. Working in a French company,
Karim lives beyond his means. He goes into debt to court a girl.
from which he suffers a defeat. He despairs. He leaves Saint Louis for Dakar.
It should be noted that Ousmane Socé advocates for a mixed society. He does not believe
not in the effectiveness of traditional values in a rapidly changing world. He writes:
We cannot continue to live according to values that are crumbling from all sides.
We need to take example from the countries of old civilization.
4.1.3. Doguicimide Paul Hazoumé
Paul Hazoumé was born in Porto-Novo in 1890, a few years after the difficult
conquest of Dahomey (Benin) by French colonial troops. He completed his studies at
The Normal School of Saint Louis in Senegal. At the end of his studies, he worked for
for a long time the profession of teacher before becoming in 1957 research director at
Museum of Man and later advisor to the French Union. Sociologist and
Ethnologist passionate about the history of his country, he is the author of an important study

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on the blood pact that earned him the Grand Prix of Literature of West Africa
French in 1937. He contributed greatly to the appreciation of the black man as a
founder, with Alioune Diop, of the review Presence African in 1947.
His work "Doguicimire" relates the struggle of two peoples of Dahomey in the
1835: the Danhoumeous and the Mahinous. Through this war story inspired by facts
authentic histories, it tells the adventures of Princess Doguicimi buried alive
next to her husband killed during a fratricidal battle. This novel is a testimony of
primary role in the situation that prevailed in the former kingdom of Dahomey.

4.2. Poetry

In the interwar period, Negro-African poetry is characterized by imitation.

western forms and contents. In Haiti, in Martinique, everything happens as if
the only literary model worthy of the name had to be found among the ranks of
symbolists and Parnassians. Due to social conformity or literary servility, one
imitate Baudelaire, Victor Hugo, Verlaine. The result of this attitude is the production
literary works that do not express the African reality and therefore productions that
do not interest anyone.
Some authors refuse to align themselves with the symbolist authors. The group of
Caribbean students of Legitimate Defense express themselves as disciples of the school
surrealist whose spiritual father is André Breton. Surrealism is a movement
literary and artistic movement born in France after the First World War. It is a trend
who defends the values of liberty and revolution against social conventions. He exalts
the values of dream and imagination. Surrealism is used by poets
Westerners to blow up their own society. Black poets will use it to
a more fundamental revolt. More than rationalism and bourgeois art, it is a
entire civilization that they are going to contest.
In 1925, the magazine Les Cahiers du mois published an interesting text under the initiative

by several authors who denounce the pride of Europe that claims to set the law on the
remains of the world. It concerns the authors who are André Breton, Louis Aragon, André Gide,
Sylvain Levi. This statement by Western intellectuals supported the claims
of the peoples that Europe has enslaved in the name of the values that are reason, culture,

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science and progress. Thus, surrealism was in line with the values of the Negro-
Africans. It allowed for a conception of the poetic magician with a power of the word.
Aimé Césaire uses this power of the verb in his poem entitled "The
Miraculous weapons." He writes:
And I tell you and
My word is peace
And I tell you, and my word is earth
And I say!
And
Joy
Burst into the new sun!
And I say:
Through learned herbs, time slips
The branches pecked at a surreal peace
And the earth breathed under the gaze of the mists

And the earth stretched. There was a crack.

With his knotted shoulders, there was in his veins
A flickering of fire.

4.3. The theater

African theater was born in the 1930s in normal schools.

higher education in Bingerville and Dakar. Modern theater in Black Africa is the work
colonies in the large coastal cities. But it should be noted that theater has existed
in Africa long before. This theatrical expression existed alongside that offered by the
schools in Dakar (Saint Louis and Bingerville) that showcased European scenes.
In fact, it was in 1932 that theater was born at the primary school of Bingerville.
African and a year later he appears at the William Ponty Normal School. The
representations were inspired by the European experience. They did not take
sufficiently take into account the African realities and the particularity of African theatre that
reveals an artistic value combining several forms: speech, gesture, music,
the dance, the mime.

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 5. Literary production after the Second World War

5.1. From 1950 to 1960

After the Second World War, particularly in the 1950s, the novel
African will take flight with authors like Camara Laye, Alexandre Biyidi
(Mongo Béti, Eza Boto), Ferdinand Oyono and many others.
Camara Laye was born in Upper Guinea in 1928. He published the novel titled
The Black Child. It is a highly autobiographical work. It tells the story of a
happy childhood and adolescence. This novel was well received by critics.
Western. He won the Charles Veillon Prize in 1954, but African intellectuals
the time were scandalized. Alexandre Biyidi becomes the spokesperson for these
intellectuals: 'Laye desperately closes his eyes to the most glaring realities of
Africa... The Black Child is not at all an ambitious testimony, and having put himself
in a bid to publish an ambitious testimony, Alexandre Biyidi publishes Cruel City
under the pseudonym Eza Boto. He denounces the abuses of the administration
colonial.
At the same time, Ferdinand Oyono published his first novel titled The Old Man
The Negro and the Medal. This work tells the adventures of Méka, an old peasant from the South.

from Cameroon, which the colonial administration decided to reward for its
devotion. Indeed, his two sons died for France during the war and his
lands were distributed to the Catholic mission. On July 14, the date of the handover of the
decoration by the Whites, several problems arise in Méka. During the ceremony
official, then during the following wine reception. Misunderstandings
accumulate and lead to a real disaster. A tornado unleashes and devastates
the banquet hall. Méka emerges staggering. He is taken to prison, brutalized and
mistreated by police officers. The hero can then measure the gap between the words
humanists of the high commissioner and the sad reality of colonization. He lost his
medal, he chooses the wisdom of returning to his village to find serenity.

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 5.2. From 1960 to 1969

The novel reaches its peak a decade before independence.

In the aftermath of independence, there is a decline in literary production.
African. Several reasons explain it: lack of publishing houses, illiteracy,
the cost of living, censorship, and above all the barter of the pen for administrative positions.
Nevertheless, the Festival of Negro Arts held in 1966 in Dakar constitutes a
cultural event of great significance of this time, which is, according to Lylian Kesteloot (2001:
the "high point and pinnacle of triumphant negritude".
The writers of this era will unfold in three main ways: the
Roman social, historical theater, and writings of traditional inspiration.
5.2.1. The social novel
Cheikh Hamidou Kane published Ambiguous Adventure in 1961, which paves the way for
He was born in Matam on the banks of the Senegal River in 1928. He comes from a large family.
family of fervent Muslim Fulani nobles. He completed his higher education in Paris, at the
faculty of law and that of Letters, before returning to her homeland.
The Ambiguous Adventure traces the spiritual journey of the young Samba Diallo, son of a
Senegalese Muslim civil servant and nephew of the chief of Diallobé. From the Quranic school,
he goes to the French school. The French school is the enemy, but also science, the
technique, as observed by the Grand Royal, Samba Diallo's aunt.
The work stages the proponents of tradition, represented by the master of
the Quranic school, Master Thierno, and the chief of the Diallobé, facing the supporters of values
Westerners (The Great Royal).
The triumph of the seconds will seal the hero's fate. After his primary studies
and high school, Samba leaves Senegal to continue his training in Paris. He
he studies philosophy and literature. He makes friends, notably Pastor Martial,
his daughter Lucienne, a communist student and Pierre-Louis, a committed Caribbean magistrate
in political action.
But the hero is consumed by doubt. He experiences a feeling of loneliness and
uprooting. Correspondence exchanges with his father do not bring him
serenity. At the request of the latter, he returns to his homeland. But back in his native country, he

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dives into a feeling of uprootedness. He defines himself as a hybrid being whose
The metamorphosis by Western thought has not been complete.
Rooted out from the place where his ancestors lived, he prefers death. The madman, an astonishing

character, returned to the village after a short stay in Europe, is the man who will put
end to the life of Samba Diallo. This madman is a witness to the impossible synthesis of the two.

cultures.
In summary, in this work, we have on one hand
✓ The supporters of tradition:
Master Thierno of the Quranic school: he is presented as a man
rigorous, committed to spiritual values and religious practices. He is
shocked by the eruption of the West that continues to disrupt values
traditional.
The chief of the Diallobé: he is the partner of Master Thierno. He defines himself as
a dignified and responsible man, clear-sighted and tenacious, but powerless in the face of the

push of the West.

Samba's father: He belongs to another generation. He contrasts with the serenity of
Islam and the rationalist activity of the West. He observes this "man does not have
never been as happy as I am right now. The history of the West seems to me
revealing the indifference of guaranteeing what man constitutes for
the man.
The Fool: he wanders since his return to his homeland and is plagued by torment
malevolent. He puts an end to Samba's life.
✓ The proponents of progress:
Oh The Great Royale: for her, times have changed and it's time to take a stand.
favor of the movement. The school has arrived and the children of Diallobéne must
not to be left behind in progress. They must go to school to learn 'The art of
to win without being right." In reality, his choice is strategic.
Lucienne: a communist student, she is a friend of Samba Diallo. She opposes
to the mystical approach of his father, the pastor, the rigor of the Marxist project.
Jean de la Croix: he is an administrator. He is the spokesperson of civilization.
technique of Europe.

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 Pierre-Louis: He is a Caribbean lawyer who experiences a double
uprooting. He believes that Africa has no other choice but to go through
the West.
oSamba Diallo: He balances between two systems of thought: tradition and progress. He
cannot decide in favor of one or the other. It is difficult for him to
choose.
Based on Samba Diallo's behavior, we can draw two interpretations of
the work
✓ The Ambiguous Adventure is a coming-of-age novel. It traces the stages of the
the education of a young African. Samba Diallo, placed at the heart of a confrontation

between two trends. He breaks with tradition by attending the new school.
The West's influence on the hero is manifested by critical thinking. He encounters
In Paris, various characters will influence his inner transformation. But
in the name of the values he knew in his childhood, Samba Diallo refuses the
religion of progress that the West offers him. First of all, because according to him,
the Western man, in the search for partial truths, has distanced himself from God, and
then because he prefers his own mode of knowledge which advocates harmony
and the cohesion with nature.
✓ The Ambiguous Adventure is a novel about the human condition. This work surpasses
the social, historical determinations of the African confronted with culture
Western. It refers to a problem of contemporary man swept away
by a development that amputates it from its roots and confines it in a
consumer civilization. In the West as in Diallobé,
The opposition is primarily between materialist rationalism, which has as its object the
conquest and the domination of nature by man and between man and nature.
In conclusion, The Ambiguous Adventure is a partly autobiographical work,
although Samba Diallo is not the exact replica of its creator. The novel describes
perfectly the encounter of cultures and its psychological consequences
The abandonment of authentic African values will have serious consequences
for the continent, estimates Cheikh Hamidou Kane. Yet the opening to the world
modern is necessary.

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 All African intellectuals see a bit of themselves in Samba Diallo.
conflict tradition-modernism, African wisdom-European technique, and the obligation of
painful compromise, finally the idealized vision of the traditional environment and family
(reminding Maïmouna of Abdoulaye Sadji), opened wide paths where
neophyte or already recognized writers, like Ferdinand Oyono with Chemin
from Europe, Aké Loba with The Sons of Kouretchaou Olympe Bhêly-Quénum with
Song of the lake; but also Médou Mvomo with Afrika Ba’aet Faliouou Seydou Badian
withUnderTheStorm.
At the same time, Henri Lopes with Tribaliques, Francis Bebey with Embarras and
the Son of Agatha Moudio, as well as Guillaume Oyono with The
Chronicles Mwoutessi opened in a minor and satirical mode the fertile vein of
the short story or brief novel.
5.2.2. The historical theater
In the literary production of the years following independence, one can
observe that the theatrical genre is dominated by historical plays. Thus, the
African theater of this era is oriented in a historico-political direction and one sees
to flourish the real memories of the resistance to the European invader, the hours
glorious empires of the Middle Ages and the first warnings against abuses
of contemporary power.
The way is opened by Aimé Césaire who publishes The Tragedy of King Christophe.
Césaire stages it, regarding Haiti and the adventures of its independence in 1804,
the clashes and misfortunes that marked this historic moment. Written during this period, and
from the height of the authority that Césaire enjoyed among intellectuals, this play became
the mirror of African independence.
In his sequel, the Guinean Djibril Tamsir Niane writes about Sikasso, on the resistance of

At the headquarters of Sikasso, the Senegalese Amadou Cissé Dia publishes The Last Days
from Lat Dior, about the battle fought by this king of Kayor against the French in which he lost his life.

The Ivorian Bernard Dadié writes consecutively Mr. Togo-Gnini (on the advent)
of a new class replacing the old feudal system in political power), Beatrice
of Congo (on the Congolese resistance to Western presence in the Congo from the 16the
Century); Storm Islands. Bernard Zadi, his compatriot, writes The Sofas, about Samory.

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 It should also be noted that Chaka, the South African king who unified Natal in the 19th centuryecentury

was 'launched' into the African literary theme by the beautiful dialogued poem by
Senghor, titled 'Chaka' and published in 1954. After 1960, a series of plays begins to emerge.
on Chaka whose Death of Chakadu Malian Seydou Badian. Césaire will add to The
Tragedy of King Christophe, A Season in the Congo, connected to immediate history
from Lumumba to Zaire.
5.2.3. The story of traditional inspiration
The third literary genre that blossomed at the dawn of independence is based on
on the rediscovery of oral literature. The theme of 'return to the sources' induces a
new interest in traditional life. The flagship works of this genre are
Twilight of Ancient Times of the Voltaic Nazi Boni and Soundjata or The Epic
Mandingue Guinean Djibril Tamsir Niane. Other writers choose to render
in French the fantastic universe of myths and tales: we can mention among others
Bernard Dadié, who publishes The Black Cloth and Birago Diop who writes The Tales of Amadou
Koumba. The movement intensified with The Tales of Larhallé Nabade Yambo
Tiendréogo of Upper Volta, The Tales and Legends of West Africa by Ousmane
Socé Diop and in Chad under the stars of Joseph Brahim Seid, to name just a few -
there.

6. The literary production from 1969 to 1980: the beginning of

disenchantment

Jacque Chevrier found, to characterize the feeling that gradually took over
the African literary universe a decade after independence, the beautiful term of
disenchantment. Lylian Kesteloot (2001: 251) ironicizes about this by saying that "the
wedding of the Black Orpheus with Africa, with Negritude, their lost Eurydice and
Recovered, did not last long. The euphoria of independence faded quite quickly.
Economic difficulties are increasing, African countries are over-indebted and must
facing a terrible drought that struck the Sahel in 1972. In addition, the regimes
dictatorial policies breed corruption and all kinds of abuses. A great
A number of writers have emerged, bravely and clearly addressing the situation.

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the political and social situation of Africa "in development". We can mention among
other Alioun Fantouré, William Sassine, Massa Makan Diabaté, Francis Bebey, Henri
Lopes, Guy Menga, Georges Ngal, Augustin Sondé Coulibaly, Amadou Koné
Guillaume Oyono. Having observed the African problems that arose after the
independences, they refused to remain fixed on the utopian vision of Negritude. They
preferred the truth of sincere testimony. Their works revealed all
the complexity of the often tragicomic convulsions of Africa in transition.
Disenchantment is noticeable from 1968, a pivotal year, with the publication
two novels that can be described as 'revolutionary': The Suns of
Independence of Ahmadou Kourouma and The Duty of Violence by Yambo Ouologuem.

6.1. The disenchantment in novel writing

6.1.1. The Duty of Violence by Yambo Ouologuem

This novel was very controversial when it was published. Some depicted it as a
copy of passages from the novel by André Schwarz-Bart titled The Last of the Just.
Ouologuem justifies himself by explaining that collage is an accepted art technique in
painting and classical art and that he had the right to introduce it into literary art.
According to the critic Alnut Nordman, "whatever you think, his novel is one of the

the most impressive francophone novels written by an African

last years." This novel addresses precolonial Africa from a perspective
pessimistic. It appears that Africa has always been the stage of cruelty and
violence. The author draws his inspiration from the African empire of Nakem, in the South of
Fezzan.
The author warns that he does not recount the splendor of this empire. He writes: 'See
this is a horror. The castrated husband, paralyzed by pain, thighs slick with blood,
helplessly watched his women become... prostitutes of the victorious village. Undressed,
then alternately possessed by the intoxicating rhythm of the tam-tam.

The worldview that emerges from this novel is that of an Africa

pre-colonial imprint of cruelty and horror. The humanism sung by the authors of
Négritude is absent from it. A Manichean position appears here that is criticized in
an article by Sossou Dzedzer: "The declamatory ramblings of the Renaudot prices." It

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Speaking of the colonialism of African notables as Yambo Ouologuem does.
either a strange ignorance of political and economic facts, or a vast
deception, clothing, driving, and whose final act is still unknown.
The slavery resulting from wars between kingdoms and African empires at that time
"Pre-colonial cannot, without abusing the concept, be considered as colonialism."
Soussou insists on a neo-colonial machination. Behind the pen of Yambo.
Ouologuem would profile the shadow of the West to obliterate the glorious past of
African people.
6.1.2. The Suns of Independence by Amadou Kourouma
In this novel, Ahmadou Kourouma casts a clear-sighted and disillusioned glance at

Africa of independence denounces the new national bourgeoisie,

"corrupted scavengers", violence, misery and dark despotism. On the level of
writing, this work constitutes a 'revolution'. Ahmadou Kourouma appropriates the
French language allowing such audacity with it as Malinke, language
author's childhood, will find all the richness of its images and its
constructions.
Another interest of the work is to be one of the first literary testimonies.
on the post-colonial life of West Africa. The story of Fama and his friends from
Togobala shows the difficulties of a material, psychological, even religious nature that
making the adaptation to the new independence society sensible. It describes the
survival and resistance of men from ancient times, the distress of the masses, the rise
new social layers, dictatorship, etc.

6.2. Political satire in theater

In the theater, political satire started with Mr. Togo-gninide.

Bernard Dadié, staged in Abidjan in 1968, a play that pilloried the new
African bourgeoisie. Dadié further emphasized the satire with caricatures of power.
that he painted in The Voices in the Wind and Islands of Storm. Jean Pliya, in Benin amused
a lot with the personal secretary, while painting a ruthless portrait of
patron of her heroine. The Cameroonians: René Philombé, with Africapolis and Jean-

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Baptiste Oboma, along with the assimilated, denounce in turn the politicians and businessmen.
Africans.

7. African literature from the 1980s to the present

Starting from the 1980s, the SAPs (Structural Adjustment Programs) were imposed.
in African countries. A large part of these countries see their economic situation
to empire, thus moving from poverty to misery. It is then that thinkers will
ask if Africa can develop. Can Africa depart? wonders René.
Dumont, while Axelle Kabou wonders: And if Africa refused the
development?

7.1. The writing of chaos or the absurd

Literature attempts to 'write the African chaos,' as Lilian Kesteloot says.

(2001: 270). Saint Monsieur Balyde Willias Sassine, Xalade Sembène Ousmane or La
Strike of Battud’Aminata Sow Fall, The Cry of Laughter by Henri Lopes, denounce the
political drifts, the absurdities and contradictions of the new bourgeoisie, the
disappointments and difficulties of the popular masses whose situation is only getting worse.
In these novels, humor tempered the tragic, making it ultimately bearable.
less for the reader.
However, one can say that Sony Labou Tansi inaugurates a kind of 'new
African novel, with apocalyptic-looking stories: The Half Life, The State
honteux, L’Anté-peuple, Les Sept Vies de Lorsa Lopez, Je soussigné cardiaque, Les Yeux
From the volcano, I, the widow of the empire, Antoine sold me his destiny.

Locha Mateo and Suzanne Gasster talk about "counter-epics" whose

characters are "defeated by their own history." Sewanou Dabla sees in these
narratives "the confusion of values, the absurdity of a dislocated universe." Everything happens in
effect as if writers could no longer help but exhume, with a violence
incredible, the excretions of these rotten regimes that act like cancers by infecting
in turn all layers of society. According to their breath and their capacity, on the
realistic mode, but more often dreamlike or even delirious, they expel through writing a

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reality that turns into a nightmare. But regardless of their mode of expression, the texts
lead to madness, death, or stupor. We find, with a delay of forty
to the feeling of an absurd world that existentialist writers had so
strongly expressed for the post-war generations. World without justice, without purpose,
without laws, except for that of the strongest, the law of the bomb and the cannon. However, this absurdity

African is less the heir of the existentialists of 1945 and the new French novel.
such South American novelists as Fuentes, Capentier, Cortazar, Sabato, or
Garcia Marquez. The sociopolitical upheavals of South America were also at
center of their concerns. And the 'underdeveloped' world of the favelas and the Sertão
is close to the urban environment of Africa, to the misery of its countryside. We
also distinguishes the influence of Anglophone Africans such as Kwei Armah, Ngugi,
Soyinka, Ben Okri whose novels have been translated into French.
Some authors finally choose the mode of pure derision, even of the
provocation. Thus, Kourouma in Monnè, outrages and challenges, and even more in En
waiting for the turn of wild beasts. This is the case of Mongo Beti who speaks of horror in
laughing in Too much sun kills love (1999), or from Monénembo who declares: 'There is no
no misfortune on earth, there are only degrees in sarcasm
Elgass).
Other writers inscribe their works in the same register: The Circle of
Tropics and The Story of Alioune Fantouré's Circus, Sahel! Bloody Drought
d’Alpha Mandé Diarra,La carte d’identitéde Jean-Marie Adiaffi,Les crapauds-brousse
The scales of the sky by Tierno Monénembo. In Burkina Faso, Pierre Claver Ilboudo
Adama or the force of things Bila Kaboré, The undesirables and Patrick Ilboudo
Trial of the mute.
There is also a more sustained attention paid to style. Henri Lopes says
On this subject: 'Before I used to tell stories, now I write.' Novelists do not wish to...
more moralists, spokespersons, "catalysts" of their peoples. This is what it expresses
the Malian Moussa Konaté in these terms: "I do not seek to change society... This
it is not the novels that will change the world... but what displeases me, I
denounce... I write to avoid sinking, we live in such a situation that everyone
must have their own lifebuoy, and for me, it is to my books that I

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"I cling" (Kesteloot, 2001: 274). Writing frees itself from its constraints
outwardly: activism, prophecy, education, vox populi, in short, everything that he was
agreed to be called 'engaged literature'. In short, the project of the African writer
becomes individualized. Thus, the novelist frees himself from collective tasks for individual goals.

more personal, and an increased stylistic search. This search in turn generates
modifications, then disruptions in the narrative structure of novels.
With the new African novel, all these parameters are being shaken up: the
the tendency towards dialogue spills over into narration to give 'feigned orality', or the
endless monologue: the narrative loses its chronological thread to leap forward and
backward, in time as in space. Everything mixes, projected future, past
resurgent, return of the present, time doubled in the consciousnesses of others
narrators, lived time/dreamed time. Pabé Mongo summarizes the writing context as follows
contemporary African novelists:

If our elders were primarily concerned with recognition

the identity of the black man, I would say that we are the writers of the seven
plagues of Africa: hunger, drought, debt, deterioration
terms of exchange, the disease, trashing, the dictatorships, the
neocolonialism. The situation of the black man has deteriorated to such an extent that
Our literature no longer features heroes but victims.
Professor Pierre N'Da rightly concludes: "In a degraded society, speech
unrestrained. The use of linguistic debauchery is necessary to express debauchery.
social. In this, the textual debauchery has the value of an iconoclastic act" (Kesteloot, 2001 :
275). One can then speak of a novel of the absurd or chaos to characterize these
often bewildering narratives born from social and political degradation.

7.2. African Literature from a Feminine Perspective

African women took twenty years before deciding to take up the pen.
to talk about themselves. Before the 1980s, there were practically no writers
feminine in Africa. In French-speaking countries, the publication by Mariama Ba of One
This long letter in 1980 marks the entry of women onto the literary scene. The success is
immediate and the work is translated into twenty languages. This 'so long letter' testifies

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of the life of disappointments of a modern woman; urban, educated, attentive to needs
of her husband and her children. The heroine of Mariama Ba is above all a wife.
responsible. But she is also a conscientious teacher, and who helps with her salary
to the household expenses. However, this attitude does not spare her from being treated
like the most unsophisticated of "village women" when her husband decides, without even warning her,

to take another wife. Struck in her love as well as in her dignity, she
suffered from pain and jealousy, until the sudden death of the marila freed from
the weight of a marriage turned into a torment.

Calixte Beyala, another figure of feminine writing, will break the myth of the
Admirable mother sung by the poets of Négritude. In You will be called Tanga
(1988), she denounces the perpetuation of women's alienation by mothers who
they educate their daughters to submission: "My mother used to tell me that I was a poor
woman. That I was distressing her. That I was making her feel pity... She claimed that my independence

it was a waste of time, of pride, of masochism. She believed fiercely

that a woman without a man is disabled, sick, psychotic.
One of the most prolific writers, Aminata Sow Fall, in The Revenant,
La Grève des Battu, L ’Appel des arènes, Le Dernier de l ’empire, Le Jujubier du
patriarch, The sweetness of the home, it does not spare anyone, not even the
female behaviors that are even its preferred targets.

7.3. The multiplication and diversification of literary creation

Starting from 1980, there is a multiplication and diversification of creation.

literary. Thus, there is a continuity of creative currents with new
orientations due to the situation of autonomy. The social manners novel develops
with new writers. The works of African literature are now gaining access
as classics. They are also gradually making their way into the curricula.
schoolchildren, in France and especially in Africa. After that of Ahmadou Kourouma, Yambo
Ouologuem or NaziBoni, a new generation of authors is taking over. In the
In the 1980s and 1990s, the rise of African literature is undeniable. With the discourse
history of La Baule in the 16th centuryandFranco-African summit in 1990, the era of begins
the democratic opening in Africa; most African political regimes founded

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the dictatorship opens up to multipartyism; this opening coincides with an explosion
from the novelistic creation; the abundance and diversity of creation are such that the
The concept of national literatures tends to replace that of African literature.
1997, issue number 129 of Our bookstore lists thus one thousand five hundred titles for the
years 1988 to 1996.
Specific collections are dedicated to African authors at the most
major publishers, from Actes Sud to Gallimard, including Éditions du Seuil or Le
Feathered serpent. Thus "Black World" at Hatier, directed by Jacques Chevrier.
first in paperback then in the classic edition, or "Black Continents," created at
Gallimard in 2000.
At the beginning of the 21st centuryecentury, it is the movement of "Migritude", a
neologism that combines negritude and emigration, which characterizes this literature. The
new generations of writers share the experience of immigration: by
example, Fatou Diome (The National Preference), Alain Mabanckou (Blue-White-
red), Sami Tchak (Place des Fêtes), Calixthe Beyala (The little prince of Belleville).
But they also remain deeply attached to their country of origin, as
Abdourahman A. Waberi (Le pays sans ombre) ou Emmanuel Dongala (Johnny chien
(nasty). Many African writers increasingly identify as
fully-fledged writers, without epithet, incidentally 'Blacks', but all remain
mobilized by the problems of Africa like Boubacar Boris Diop, (The drums
of memory). African literature, especially published in Paris, reaches an audience
European and African immigrant. Thus, the current novelists face the issue of
the novelistic writing at the center of which are the relationships between the imaginary and
the real. The novel begins to become more the adventure of a writing than the story of a
adventure, to paraphrase Results Jean Ricardou (1932-2016), in The Adventurer of
New Novel. However, in Africa, apart from the educational field, local publishing
in French remaining limited, it does not reach a wide readership and its audience remains
restricted.

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 8. Strengths and weaknesses of African literature
contemporary

Jacques POIRIER and Abdoulaye IMOROU point out that "Africa is

passed, in the span of a century, from the status of a continent "outside literature" to that of a
continent in a position to say what literature should be.
Many observers note that the weight of this literature in the global one is akin to the
weight of the African economy in the global economy. Like its economy, the
African literature, in their opinion, is underdeveloped and dependent on publishing and the
Western critique. Faced with such contradictory opinions, one can wonder what is
the real weight of African literature in global literature. Such is the question
fundamental question we will attempt to answer in this last part.

8.1. Weaknesses of contemporary African literature

We can identify among others three major obstacles that hinder the
global diffusion of African literature: the lack of readership, the problems
of publishing, production, and distribution and the difficulties related to literary criticism.
African literary production is not sufficiently read in Africa and in
the world, and this, for several reasons. The first is that Africans still remain
mostly illiterate. By illiterate, it should be understood not only as
elements of the population who have never been to school, but also those who,
summarily educated may quickly return to a state of ignorance due to
cultural supporters. Readers can therefore only count among those who have a
sufficient education level to engage in reading. Other reasons than us
give Jacques CHEVRIER, (1984: 223) still reduce the number of these
potential readers: "African life indeed emphasizes the group,
community, and it leaves little room for solitary reflection or isolation.
The African who wishes to read must do everything possible to secure a retreat.
the gap of this community that is often very noisy. But its good will will be
still hindered by numerous obstacles. Among these, one must mention the high cost and the

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the rarity of the book, a luxury object, and the cramped nature of housing sometimes lacking

of electricity. It is indeed a familiar sight to travelers that these groups of

night readers gathered around the luminous points that punctuate the streets of
African cities.
On the other hand, it is also important to emphasize the dichotomy that exists between the reader and

the African writer who is primarily concerned with contributing to the dialogue
international intellectual, while it must primarily get closer to the reader
national. In this regard, Ngwarsungu CHIWENGO (2005: 71) points out that
the African writer "is concerned with the arrangement of poetic words," "according to the
"French aesthetic standards" which seem to have "no impact in the
the conscience of the people while (it) proclaims itself the elite of this people". If the readership of

African literature is weak, even on the continent, this literature still remains
unknown in many parts of the world. According to Amande REBOUL and Raphaël
THIERRY2Africa still accounts for less than 1% of total book imports.
in France and African publishers occupy less than 1% of the total area of
Paris Book Fair, which gives an idea of the weight of its literature at a level
global.
If African literature is not sufficiently known and read outside of
continent, this is also due to the fact that it is not sufficiently taught outside of
continent. Thomas C. SPEAR observes that 'Francophone classics are represented'
rarely in the literature textbooks of French high schools" and he poses the question
next: "Why do we find Albert Camus or Marguerite Duras there and not Aimé
Césaire, Kateb Yacine or Léopold Sédar Senghor?" Similarly, he notes that "The
The French-speaking world studies French literature, but literature is rarely studied.
French speakers in France...3
African literature is not lacking in significant critiques. Among
the critics having a remarkably abundant and significant production, we can

2Cf. Amande REBOUL and Raphaël THIERRY: "33rd Paris Book Fair: African Publishing of
centered towards the 'margins' (First part).
3Same.

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cite Thomas Melone, Mohamadou Kane, Georges Ngal, Bernard Mouralis, Lylian
Kesteloot, etc. Among them are the European exegetes of African literature.
African critics living in Europe and finally African critics living in Africa.
However, it can be noted that the African-origin critique suffers from a lack
of publishing and distribution, a lack of research tools, a weakness of
national development policies in the field of education and research in
higher and university level. Therefore, this criticism faces difficulties in
legitimize one's voice which often seems stifled by that of postcolonial critics and
Westerners and the diaspora. It claims its specificity compared to the methods
occidental; but the literary tradition itself seems to be constituted from the outside. The
readers are mainly recruited from abroad and the focus of this literature is
determined by the latter to the detriment of nationals.
Regarding literary publishing, Yves DAKOUO (2011: 132), in his work
Emergence of modern literary practices in Francophone Africa: The construction
from the literary space in Burkina Faso, notes that "(...) in public opinion, among
writers like those among critics, whether African or European, a book published in Europe,
regardless of its mode of publication (printer or professional publisher), has a more
great legitimacy that a work published at the so-called local level." In addition to this observation, it is necessary to

note that the majority of well-known African writers are published in France and the
manuscripts first cross the Mediterranean before eventually reaching the
African publishers. Furthermore, it should be noted that Francophone literatures remain
still dependent on the circuits of French publishing which, due to its resources
powerful economies flood the entire French-speaking world with their productions. And the
Less that can be said is that this Parisian competition puts small businesses to the test.
local publishing houses.
In his essay entitled The (neo)colonialism of literature published by Karthala editions,
Vivan STEEMERS (2012: 11) shows that since independence, there has been a
establishment of a neocolonial literary system. The former metropolis continues to play
a central role towards its peripheries. Jacques CHEVRIER (1984: 220-221), who
sharing this viewpoint teaches us that even the publishing houses established in
Africa does not always truly belong to Africans. He asserts that "in a few...

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with a few exceptions, these African publishing houses remain in the political trend and
commercial ventures of powerful Western financial groups (Hachette, Nathan, Bordas,
Hatier...) who, even if they do not hold the majority of the shares, still own some.
due to technological mastery, true leadership.
western on African publishing, the French partners have until now
primarily interested in the school sector, by far the most profitable, thus neglecting the
general literature which, for example, barely represents a third of NEA's production
(same: 221).
The phenomenon of close dependence that defines production is found at
the level of broadcasting primarily ensured in Francophone Africa, according to Jacques
CHEVRIER, by the powerful group Edipresse, a subsidiary of Hachette and in this distribution
the share of French books (textbooks, bestselling novels, comics, thrillers, works of
popularization far outweighs the African book as such. It is this
French control over the production and distribution of books in general and of works
literary figures in particular, that Jacques CHEVRIER refers to as "cultural neo-colonialism".
We can therefore say that this dependence on the former metropolis is a
a major obstacle that prevents African literature from claiming a prominent place
among the literatures of the world. However, all these difficulties should not make
forget the notable progress of African literature within the literatures of the world.

8.2. Strengths of African literature

African literature is becoming increasingly known and valued within the

world literatures because it has something special to offer them.
African literature is increasingly taught in Africa and around the
world. In Africa, it holds a prime position in the various orders
of education in each country. In Burkina Faso, for example, African literature
is present at the level of basic education through recitations, stories,
excerpts from novels, etc. At the level of post-primary and secondary education,
Many African works are studied either in full or through excerpts.
Among these works, we can mention The Dark Child by Camara Laye, The Frasques

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from Ebintod'Amadou Koné, the cruel city of Eza Boto, Twilight of ancient times
Nazi Boni.
Higher education is the prime place where African works are
exploited. Since the 1980s, the trend in the literature departments
the modern universities of Africa aim to push back the worship of France, of the language,
of French literature and culture, for the benefit of literature and languages
African. Many universities have recognized the need to create early on.
to African literary studies a framework for growth outside of 'studies'
French”. Guy Ossito MIDIOHOUAN gives us a few examples: “It is the
case of the Faculty of Arts of the Lovanium University (Democratic Republic of the Congo) where

Since 1962, there has been a Center for Romance Literature of African Inspiration (CELRIA).
This is the case of the University of Yaoundé where a Research Team in Literature
Comparative African Studies has been operational since 1969. This is the case for the University of Abidjan which has

established in 1979 an Institute of Negro-African Literature and Aesthetics. This is the case of
Marien Ngouabi University where a Department of Literature and Civilizations exists
Africans4To these examples, we can add that of Burkina Faso where the
African literature in general and Burkinabè literature in particular hold the top position.
in higher education and research, at the level of the Departments of Letters
modern. All of this contributes to promoting and valuing it, through training.
future teachers, researchers, critics, and writers of African literature. But
What about the other continents?
Beyond the African continent, African literature is taught in Europe,
in the faculties of Comparative Literature and in North American universities.
Thomas C. SPEAR5explains to us that 'Following the social upheavals of
1960s and 1970s and the development of new fields of knowledge within
the American university, the programs of the French departments have also hardly
slightly modified to integrate Francophone literatures in a way that some

4Guy Ossito MIDIOHOUAN, 'The Teaching of the French Language and French Literature'
in Secondary and University in Francophone Africa.
5Thomas C. SPEAR: "Variations on the language of Molière; the teaching of French in the United States"
Unis.

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find it concerning. Thanks to this openness -which is not found in France-,
writers and professors from Africa and the Caribbean, in particular, occupy
new positions created in this field and contribute significantly to the
formation of American students." If we are to believe this author, today, it is rare
the universities in the United States that do not offer courses in African literature.
Other works and writers studied in the United States include Léopold Sédar Senghor.
Ousmane Sembene, Ben Jelloun, Guillaume Oyono Mbia, The Tales of Amadou
Koumbade Birago Diop, 'The man who resembles you' by René Philombe, Such a
long letter from Mariama Bâ, "much studied in the United States, deserves its position of
classical6, etc.
The growing notoriety of so-called Francophone authors is manifested through the
awards given to them. For example, the Goncourt, the Grand Prix for the novel of
the Académie française, the Renaudot, the Femina, and the Goncourt des lycéens have all been
awarded in 2006 to writers known as francophones. Relying on the literary capital
what do these prizes represent, we can then say that African literature is making a
place in world literature.
Alongside national literatures, there is an increased emergence of a
African diasporic literature. This form of literature is the work of writers who, for
most of them started their careers in Africa and later exiled themselves or
emigrated to countries in Europe or America, such as Ngandu Nkashama, V.Y.
Mudimbe, Paul Bolya, Mpoyi of Buatu, Tshisungu of Tshisungu, Tshitungu
Nkongolo, Djungu-Nsimba, Ngal Mwil-a-Mpanga, Joseph Mwantuali, Emongo
Lomongo, Jean-Claude Kangomba, etc. This literature produced in Northern countries
has more visibility abroad than that produced in Africa. This is also
true for literary criticism that thrives better outside.
According to Jacques POIRIER and Abdoulaye IMOROU, Africa has moved,
in the span of a century, from the status of a continent 'outside literature' to that of a continent in

6Ibid.

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position to say what literature should be7Africa asserts itself by imposing
new literary rules different from the Western and Parisian norm that
previously was hegemonic. A new way of looking at literature is emerging
African in the literary field, emancipated from Parisian and French dogma, and above all
open to the world, a stakeholder in the global literary field. This breaking down of barriers
African literatures can be explained by the fact that, in their writings, the authors open up.
towards other literary horizons, other narratives and assert themselves in forms
of a writing relatively different from that valued in the Western space. According to
the proponents of world literature, these literatures would be more colorful, mixed, and
would mix the cultures of all continents unlike French literature
more self-centered.
One of the manifestations of changes in the relationship between literature
African and Western literatures was the publication of a literary manifesto entitled
For a 'world literature' in French
(cf. Le Monde, March 16, 2007), of which a large number of African authors write in
French: Koffi Kwahulé, Alain Mabanckou, or Abdourahman A. Waberi. For
The defenders of this manifesto, the text marks a historical moment, a "revolution".
Copernican" in the global literary field. Relying on the literary capital that
represents the growing prominence of so-called francophone authors, the proponents of
world literature calls into question the implicit hierarchy among the
categorization of French literature and Francophone literature. They reject the vision
traditional according to which the first, produced in the traditional center that is Paris,
represents the norm, while the second, relegated to the periphery, would be minor. The
tenants of world literature call for moving away from a vision that is too often ethnocentric
and neocolonial of the literary field. Their movement dethrones Paris and consecrates the
former peripheries, including Africa. For them, the old classification of literature
Francophone is no more! Long live that of French language literature around the world.

7Francophone Africa in the global literary game. Modalities and stakes of norm strategies
and the gap", call for contributions for the international conference in Dijon.

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 This recent awareness could be the culmination of a long
process that since the years of independence tends towards the autonomy of the field
African literature, a progressive decolonization of minds transfigured in forms
of writing and narrative forms, in the stories and the multiple genres practiced by
the authors

Conclusion

Once considered a continent without literature, Africa has made its

entry onto the world literary scene with Batoualade by René Maran, who won the
Goncourt Prize 1921 and which set the tone for all African literary production
subsequent. African literature struggles to be exported mainly due to the weight of the
Western literature and the lack of sufficient financial resources for the
Africans can edit, produce, and distribute their own literature.
However, African literature is increasingly gaining its autonomy in relation to
the West. The numerous literary awards won by its writers and their willingness to
reverse the trend to no longer be at the mercy of literature and criticism
Western indications show that changes are happening and that African literature will have a place.
increasingly important in world literature.

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 ▪ MATESO, Locha (1986). African literature and its criticism. Paris :
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