recent weeks I have not had much time to devote to this blog, and frequency of posts has been affected. To compensate, I would refer you to specialists that African literature better than I write three papers, signed by Tirthankar Chanda for the first two and Jacques Chevrier for the third, who talk black literature and history of Africa, while in 2010 we celebrate 50 years of independence many African countries.
1) "Orpheus débaîllonné: Birth of Black Literature"
In this first article, Tirthankar Chanda , literary journalist at RFI and professor at Paris-VIII and Inalco, s 'interested in the emergence of "literature negro." If the Senegalese Amadou Diagne Mapaté can be considered the first African writer, it should be noted that his short story, The Three Wishes of Malic (1920), remains deeply marked by the kind of "colonial novel" and can not therefore claim to represent African literature . The birth of this comes a year later in 1921 with the release of Batouala , Guyana - another paradox - Maran , which won the Prix Goncourt in spite of a very virulent preface against the colonial system: the "style negro" was born , estimate Leopold Sedar Senghor, seeing Maran the "precursor of Negritude." The motion carried by Senghor, Cesaire and Damas develops in the years 1930 and after the war, mingles in the works of novelists emerging new then, the themes of protest and revolt against the colonial system.
"The years 1950 and 1960 represent the golden age of French-speaking African novel writes Tirthankar Chanda with the publication of the classic" : L'Enfant Noir (1953) of Camara Laye ; The Poor Christ of Bomba (1956), Mongo Beti of ; 's Bits of Wood God (1960), Sembene Ousmane ; The Ambiguous Adventure (1961), Cheikh Hamidou Kane .
Read the article on RFI.fr
2) "The independence of African literature in the mirror"
After independence, African writers return "commitment forged in the furnace fighting against colonial masters new of Africa " says Tirthankar Chanda in this second article, and denounce corruption, violence, nepotism, coups, dictatorships ...
This is the case of Malian Yambo Ouologuem which publishes Le Devoir de violence (1968) and the Ivorian Ahmadou Kourouma which in The Suns of Independence (1968 also), invented in Also a writing language that disrupts the mixed classical French. A whole new generation of writers then enrolled in the legacy of Ouologuem and Kourouma, including Williams Sassine (Guinea), Tierno Monénembo (Guinea), Boubacar Boris Diop (Senegal), Emmanuel Dongala (Congo), etc.. Other
wave, African writers are entering the literary scene from the late 1970s: first with the Senegalese Mariama Ba ( So Long a Letter, 1979), then with Aminata Sow Fall (Senegal), Ken Bugul (Senegal), Veronica Tadjo (Ivory Coast) or Calixthe Beyala (Cameroon).
Finally, a fourth generation, transcontinental or universalist, emerges in the years 1990-2000 and is detached from Africa as a single theme: his main spokesman called Alain Mabanckou , Abdourahman Waberi , Kossi Efoui , Kangni Alem, Fatou Diome , etc..
Read the article on RFI.fr
3) "Fifty years of sub-Saharan African literature"
In this third article, Jacques Chevrier , large specialist in African literature professor at the Sorbonne and author, inter alia, in reference Literature negro (1974), discusses the topics above. He recalls that the literature is already present in Africa long before independence, particularly through the thought of Negritude. He insists on the turn that takes African literature in 1968 with the publication of Le Devoir de violence of Yambo Ouologuem which "shatters the myth of the great brotherhood negro" , and Suns of Independence , Of Ahmadou Kourouma which "opens in the mode of derision, the vein of disenchantment stories post-colonial" and "proof that an African writer can sink his writing in the mold of practice another language " than French. A disruption in writing that the Congolese Sony Labou Tansi brought to its apogee in The Life and half in 1979, a deconstruction of the narrative which is also found in Boubacar Boris Diop , Kossi Efoui and Abdourahman Waberi .
evokes Jacques Chevrier also socially engaged authors: Mariama Ba, Were Were Liking , character, sex, or Tanella Boni Veronica Tadjo among writers, they commence 'guerilla feminist or say "the discomfort caused by the urban world ", sometimes with a point " carnival " found also in Sony Labou Tansi , Florent Couao-Zotti or Williams Sassine . This "scriptural violence" is also in the service of a "writing of war " that addresses inter-ethnic conflicts in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Congo ( Ahmadou Kourouma , Emmanuel Dongala ), without forgetting the Rwandan genocide ( Boubacar Boris Diop , Veronique Tadjo , Abdourahman Waberi , Tierno Monénembo ).
Finally, the author of the article deals in Europe to date called "literature of the suburbs", led by writers born in the 1970s, such as Mamadou Mahmoud N'Dongo . These writers, with many others who "move between several countries, multiple languages and cultures" , draw a new trend, that of "Migritude" where they define themselves primarily as writers, incidentally as Negroes.
Read the article on Southern Cultures
