The Francophone African Text

Focusing on the African writer and the language of the former colonial power, The Francophone African Text: Translation and the Postcolonial Experience highlights the writer's re-appropriation of the foreign language in the creative writing process. It calls attention to the African writer's use of French, a process of creative translation in which the writer's words form a hybrid code that compels the original French to refer to the indigenous African language for meaning. Examining a group of works under the theme of translation, this book reveals that a consideration of both ideological and linguistic elements enhances understanding of the subject from the broader perspective of postcolonial discourse.

The linguistically innovative aspect of Francophone African literature has been recognized and studied from a variety of angles over recent decades, yet little attention has been paid to what happens to such literature when it is translated into another language. Taking as its corpus all sub-Saharan Francophone African texts that have ever been published in English, this book explores the ways in which translators approach innovative features such as African-language borrowings, neologisms and other deliberate manipulations of French, depictions of sociolinguistic variation, and a variety of types of wordplay. The implications of their translation decisions are drawn out with reference to the broader significances that are often accorded to postcolonial literature, and earlier critics' calls for a decolonized translation practice are explored from both a practical and theoretical angle. These findings are used to push towards a detailed investigation of the postcolonial turn in translation studies, drawing on the work of key postcolonial theorists such has Homi K. Bhabha and Gayatri Spivak. This is a timely and incisive critical assessment of contemporary discourses on the ethics and politics of translation.

In recent years, the material circumstances governing the production of African literature have been analyzed from a variety of angles. This study goes one step further by charting the trajectories of a corpus of francophone African (sub-Saharan) narratives subsequently translated into English. It examines the role of various institutional agents and agencies—publishers, preface writers, critics, translators, and literary award committees—involved in the value-making process that accrues visibility to these texts that eventually reach the Anglo-American book market. The author evinces that over time different types of publishers dominated, both within the original publishing space as in the foreign literary field, contingent on their specific mission—be it commercial, ideological or educational—as well as on socioeconomic and political circumstances. The study addresses the influence of the editorial paratextual framing—pandering to specific Western readerships—the potential interventionist function of the translator, and the consecrating mechanisms of literary and translation awards affecting both gender and minority representation. Drawing on the work by key sociologists and translation theorists, the author uses an innovative interdisciplinary methodology to analyze the corpus narratives.

This work explores the limits and prospects of Afro-Caribbean Francophone writers in reshaping or producing action-oriented literature. It shows how Francophone literatures have followed a hegemonic discourse that leaves little room for thinking outside of traditional cultural and ideological conventions. Part One explores the origins of Afro-Caribbean Francophone literature and what the author terms "griotism"--a shared heritage of awareness of biological differences, a sense of the black hero as black messiah and black people as chosen, and the promise of a common racial history. Part Two discusses the formidable grip of griotism on Fanon, Mudimbe, the champions of Creolity (Bernabe, Chamoiseau, and Confiant), and well-read African women writers (Aminata Sow Fall, and Mariama Ba). Part Three seeks to subvert the discourse of griotism in order to propose a new autonomy for Francophone African writers.

France's presence on the African continent has often been presented as 'cooperation' and part of French cultural policy by policy-makers in Paris and quite as often been denounced as 'the longest scandal of the republic' by French academics and African intellectuals. Between the last years of French colonialism and France's sustained interventions in former African colonies such as Chad or Côte d'Ivoire during the 2000s, the legacy of French colonialism has shaped the historical trajectory of more than a dozen countries and societies in Africa. The complexities of this story are now, for the first time, addressed in a comprehensive series of essays, based on new research by a group of specialists in French colonial history. The book addresses the needs of both academic specialists and those of students of history and neighbouring disciplines looking for structural analysis of key themes in France's and Africa's shared history.

The Contemporary Francophone African Intellectual examines the issues with which the contemporary African intellectual engages, the fields s/he occupies, her/his residence and perspective, and her/his relations with the State and the people. In an increasingly economically deprived Africa, in which some states are ruled by dictators, what chances do people have of becoming intellectuals, using their critical faculties to challenge hegemony, enacting the transformative power of ideas in a public forum? Do intellectuals who remain in Africa run the risk of being swallowed into a vortex of hagiography? What is the responsibility of the intellectual in the face of an event such as the Rwandan genocide? What influence does religion have upon the contemporary intellectual’s work? Is migration one of the only paths available for African intellectuals, a number of whom have been critiquing their continent from within Europe? This volume focuses on the intellectual’s engagement across literature, philosophy, journalism and cultural criticism. It contains studies of established writers and philosophers as well as new voices. An African writer and public intellectual describes her own experience in and out of Africa in one chapter; a Philosophy Professor discusses his intellectual trajectory in another. Overall, this timely volume, which includes analysis of the work of intellectuals from North, East, West and Central Africa, problematizes our current understandings of the intellectual legacy of Africa and opens up new avenues into this understudied area.

2010 marked the 50th anniversary of the 'Year of Africa'. All France's colonies in sub-Saharan Africa gained their independence in that year. This text brings together leading scholars from across the globe to review 'Francophone Africa at Fifty'. It examines continuities from the colonial to the post-colonial period and analyses the diverse and multi-faceted legacy of French colonial rule in sub-Saharan Africa. It also reviews the decolonization of French West Africa in comparative perspective and observes how independence is remembered and commemorated fifty years on.

From Senegal in the west to the Comoros islands in the east, this collection of essays casts a critical eye over fifty years of 'independence' in former French colonial possessions of Africa and the Indian Ocean. With methods and perspectives that cross traditional disciplinary barriers, Contesting Historical Divides in Francophone Africa proposes fresh insights into the process of decolonisation in this part of the world.