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African Literature in French
This 1976 book provides both a historical survey and a critical analysis of the literature in French from West and Equatorial Africa. Professor Blair begins by discussing the social, educational and political influences which led to the formation of the Negritude movement and to a flowering of French-African creative writing. This historical approach is then complemented by a study of the different literary genres. She traces the evolution of the first manifestations of literary activity in French by African writers, the written folk-tale, fable and short story, from the oral tradition of the indigenous culture, and the eventual appearance of the novel with a legendary or historical theme. The origins of French-African drama are considered for the first time, and the work of the minor poets analysed. Finally, Professor Blair attempts a definition of the French-African novel, and studies examples from three major periods from the 1930s onwards.
Britain, France and the Decolonization of Africa
Looking at decolonization in the conditional tense, this volume teases out the complex and uncertain ends of British and French empire in Africa during the period of ‘late colonial shift’ after 1945. Rather than view decolonization as an inevitable process, the contributors together explore the crucial historical moments in which change was negotiated, compromises were made, and debates were staged. Three core themes guide the analysis: development, contingency and entanglement. The chapters consider the ways in which decolonization was governed and moderated by concerns about development and profit. A complementary focus on contingency allows deeper consideration of how colonial powers planned for ‘colonial futures’, and how divergent voices greeted the end of empire. Thinking about entanglements likewise stresses both the connections that existed between the British and French empires in Africa, and those that endured beyond the formal transfer of power.
The Old Man and the Medal
Writing in French in the 1950s, Ferdinand Léopold Oyono (1929–2010) had only a brief literary career, but his anticolonialist novels are considered classics of twentieth-century African literature. Like Oyono’s Houseboy, also available from Waveland Press, this novel fiercely satirizes the false pretenses of European colonial rule in Africa. Meka, a village elder, has always been loyal to the white man. It is with pride that he first hears he is to receive a medal. While waiting for the ceremony, however, Meka’s pride gives way to skepticism. At the same time, his wife has realized that the medal is being given to her husband as compensation for the sacrifices they have made. The events following the ceremony confirm Meka’s new estimation of the white man. Both subtle and oftentimes humorous, this beautifully told story lays bare the hollowness of the mission in Africa. It fuels opportunities for discussing colonial politics around class and race as well as for exploring indigenous Cameroon life and values.
So Long a Letter
An intense and poised novel in the form of a letter written by Ramatoulaye, who has recently been widowed.
Black France
"[W]ithout a doubt one of the most important studies so far completed on literature in French grounded in the experiences of migrants of sub-Saharan African origin." —Alec Hargreaves, Florida State University France has always hosted a rich and vibrant black presence within its borders. But recent violent events have raised questions about France's treatment of ethnic minorities. Challenging the identity politics that have set immigrants against the mainstream, Black France explores how black expressive culture has been reformulated as global culture in the multicultural and multinational spaces of France. Thomas brings forward questions such as—Why is France a privileged site of civilization? Who is French? Who is an immigrant? Who controls the networks of production? Black France poses an urgently needed reassessment of the French colonial legacy.
The Child in French and Francophone Literature
From the contents: Sandra BECKETT: Babes in the woods: today's riding hoods go to granny's. - Lewis SEIFERT: Madame Le Prince de Beaumont and the infantilization of the fairy tale. - Michael O'RILEY: La Bete est morte!': Mending images and narratives of ethnicity and national identity in post-World War II France. - Eileen HOFT-MARCH: Child Survivors and Narratives of Hope: Georges Perec's W ou le souvenir d'enfance'. - Alioune SOW: L'enfance metisse ou l'enfance entre les eaux: Le chercheur d'Afriques' de Henri Lopes. - Cheryl TOMAN: Writing Childhood: Reflection of a nation in a village voice in Marie-Claire Matip's Ngond'. - Julie BAKER: The childhood of the epic hero: representation of the child protagonist in the Old French Enfances' texts. - Mary EKMAN: Destinataire et/ou heritier du texte': figuring the child in early modern French memoirs."
It Shall be of Jasper and Coral
With Liking's refreshingly iconoclastic writing driving their message, It Shall Be of Jasper and Coraland Love-across-a-Hundred-Livesintroduces a fascinating African literary voice to the English-speaking world.
At Night All Blood is Black
WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE The prize-winning story of a Senegalese soldier in the trenches, told in hypnotic, powerful prose Alfa and Mademba are two of the many Senegalese soldiers fighting in the Great War. Together they climb dutifully out of their trenches to attack France's German enemies whenever the whistle blows, until Mademba is wounded, and dies in a shell hole with his belly torn open. Without his more-than-brother, Alfa is alone and lost amidst the savagery of the conflict. He devotes himself to the war, to violence and death, but soon begins to frighten even his own comrades in arms. How far will Alfa go to make amends to his dead friend? At Night All Blood is Black is a hypnotic, heartbreaking rendering of a mind hurtling towards madness.
The Knight and His Shadow
A brilliant tour de force, The Knight and His Shadow tells the tale of Lat-Sukabé’s quest to find his former lover, Khadidja, who writes him to “come before it’s too late.” As Lat-Sukabé recounts his past with Khadidja, reality shapeshifts and takes on a dreamlike quality. He describes how Khadidja is hired by a wealthy stranger to sit before an open door and tell stories into an uncertain darkness, unable to see the person to whom she speaks. Like Lat-Sukabé and Khadidja, the reader feels farther from home with every page, as the world turns and morphs. With those shifts, the symbolic order, the basis of meaning and sanity, begins to tremble. Postmodernist sensibilities meet postcolonial concerns in this lyrical novel from a master of Senegalese literature.
Teaching the African Novel
What is the African novel, and how should it be taught? The twenty-three essays of this volume address these two questions and in the process convey a wealth of information and ideas about the diverse regions, peoples, nations, languages, and writers of the African continent. Topics include Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's favoring of indigenous languages and literary traditions over European; the special place of Marxism in African letters;the influence of Frantz Fanon; women writers and the sub-Saharan novel;the Maghrebian novel;the novel and the griot epic in the Sahel;Islam in the West African novel;novels in Spanish from Equatorial Guinea;apartheid and postapartheid fiction;African writers in the diaspora;globalization in East African fiction; teaching Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart to students in different countries;the Onitsha market romance. The volume editor, Gaurav Desai, writes, "The point of the volume is to encourage a reading of Africa that is sensitive to its history of colonization but at the same time responsive to its present multiracial and multicultural condition."
