BOOK REVIEW: Tadjo, V. (2017). En compagnie des hommes. Paris : Don Quichotte Éditions (169 pages).

Well-known for her socio-political commitment ever since her first work,Latérite (1984), a collection of earth-bound orality-inspired poems, the Ivorianwriter, Véronique Tadjo, has just come out with a novel, En compagnie deshommes (“In the company of humans”), on the Ebola pandemic that ravagedGuinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone from 2014 to 2016. The narrative tracks thequinary evolution of the epidemic from incubation to temporary resolutionthrough the prodomal stage, acute stage, and intervention. The title can beunderstood in at least five ways. First, the invitation of the virus by humans intotheir fold, through the hunting and consumption of bats. Two, the humanizationof the virus. Three, the anthropomorphization of Nature, the Baobab, and theBat. Four, the mobilization of teams of actors, both local and international,to confront the pandemic. Five, the union of humans and non-humans for theprotection of nature

Représentations de l’enseignant dans le roman africain francophone

L’enseignant exerce une influence quasi-divine sur le destin de son élève. L’article se propose d’étudier les implications politiques et développementales de ce pouvoir dans les sociétés coloniale et post-coloniale. La manière dont ce pouvoir est utilisé par les professeurs qu’on trouve dans le roman africain francophone servira à les mettre dans l’une de ces catégories : personnage-enseignant antipathique, personnage-enseignant ambivalent et personnage-enseignant constructif.Teachers have quasi-divine influence on the destiny of their students. The article attempts to study the political and developmental implications of this power in colonial and post-colonial societies. The manner in which this power is used will help to categorize the profiles of teachers as depicted in Francophone African fiction into one of these molds : the fictional antipathetic teacher, the fictional ambivalent teacher and the fictional constructive teacher

Primacy, polemic, and paradox in Ken Bugul’s The abandoned baobab

Arguably considered the prototype of African postcolonial feminist writing by reason of its poignant depiction of taboo subjects such as lesbianism, prostitution, drugs, and suicide, Ken Bugul’s The abandoned baobab has elicited sustained interest from the academy. This paper seeks to contribute to the debate by examining the strands of counter-discourse and postcolonial complicity within the context of the primacy ascribed to myths, the baobab, and the mother. It is driven by nativism and postcolonial theory. Far from constituting impregnable defense systems against hegemony, these primal forces prove to be limited in their protection of the protagonist. The paper concludes that even if the narrative foregrounds the mirage of hermetic identities and norms, it also defends Afrocentric development in the postcolony

L’inscription du corps dans quatre romans postcoloniaux d’Afrique

More and more, contemporary African literature dwells on the body —as the subject and object of desire, as a refuge and as a commodified and objectified victim. Using as reference points four novels —Calixthe Beyala’s C’est le soleil qui m’a brûlée and Femme nue, femme noire, Williams Sassine’s Mémoire d’une peau and Nimrod’s Les jambes d’Alice— all of which inscribe the body onto and into the text, this article seeks to analyse diverse manifestations of the textualized body. Works of alienation and dispossession, these four texts also focus on corporeal quests for equilibrium. The presence of the body in the four novels is reinforced by the recourse to the first person narrative and testimonial writing. The article occupies a position at the crossroads of postcolonial theory and feminist studies

Claire Ducournau. — La fabrique des classiques africains : Écrivains d’Afrique subsaharienne (1960-2012)

Largely sourced from her 2012 EHESS doctoral thesis, Claire Ducournau’s La fabrique des classiques africains: Écrivains d’Afrique subsaharienne francophone is a well-researched socio-literary inquiry into the structural conditions that shape the production, reception, and legitimation of sub-Saharan African artistic creations of French expression. While the study’s underlying anti-hegemonic and postcolonial temper pits it against the institutionalized, largely Paris-centric, modes and norms o..

Les déboires des indépendences dans les deux premiers romans d´Ahmadou Kourouma

Le paysage affligeant de l’Afrique post indépendance a produit des travaux satiriques majeurs deux de qui sont les soleils des indépendances et Monnè outrage défis, de Ahmadou Kourouma. Ce papier discute les échecs d’indépendance. Pendant que l’usage de pouvoir politique par la caste souveraine pour gains socio-économiques égoïstes au détriment de la communauté moins favorisé. L’article analyse aussi les dimensions interrogatrices et impératives à la satire sur le pouvoir dans les premiers deux romans de Kourouma. Le subtext des deux travaux et le besoin pour un changement qualitatif en Afrique.A desditosa situação da África pós-independência produziu importantes obras satíricas, duas das quais são Les soleils des indépendances e Monnè, outrages et défies, de Ahmadou Kourouma. Este artigo discute os fracassos da independência e o uso do poder político pela classe dominante para auferir vantagens econômicas em detrimento da população menos favorecida. Analisa também as dimensões interrogativas e imperativas à sátira do poder presentes nestes dois romances. A mensagem de ambas as obras é a necessidade de uma mudança qualitativa em África

Et Beyala (re)créa Dieu : confi gurations de la divinité et du sacré dans les romans d’une écrivaine impie

If there is unanimity among commentators that the harsh conditions of life of the underprivileged (women, children, and immigrants) constitute the major thrust of Calixthe Beyala’s works, there is still a dimension, crucial in my opinion to the understanding of her works, which has not yet received critical inquiry. For, discernible in the fifteen novels of the irreverent writer is a consistent reconstruction of divinity that induces one to think that her feminism is sharpened by the interrogation of the divine essence. The attempt to recreate women and the world is linked inextricably to the gesture of reconstructing God and rethinking sacredness. I will in this article attempt to examine the representations of divinity and the sacred in Beyala’s fi ction along four lines: ideological convergence, demolition of androcentric gods, veneration of the female spirit, and the conciliation of opposites

L’éthique de la différence en traduction : le cas de deux romans africains francophones et de leur restitution en anglais

Translation advances the cause of the international community as it plays a vital role in global development and understanding. The literary text needs to be translated before readers from diverse linguistic communities can apprehend and enjoy it. To a large extent, the success of the translation enterprise is a function of the accuracy of the target-text. With illustrations drawn from two francophone african masterpieces, Ahmadou Kourouma’s Les soleils des indépendances and Mariama Bâ’s Une si longue lettre, this article seeks to determine the extent to which the target-texts in English respect the spirit and the letter articulated by the source-texts. The article will, in the main, be underpinned by the principle of the ethics of difference as enunciated by Venuti