La littérature africaine francophone dans le champ littéraire universel: Dire l’Afrique en français

Abstract

The most visible consequence of French colonization in Africa is certainly the maintenance of the French language as an official working language in communication between the new independent nations on the one hand, and the rest of the world on the other. This is surprising when one thinks of the epic struggle that Africans fought at the end of the Second World War to put an end to the subjection imposed by Western powers, that the sons of Africa commonly known as Senegalese riflemenhad powerfully helped to free from the Nazi yoke. It should be remembered that this decision to maintain French, among other things as the official working language of African countries, was taken during a resolution of the defunct Organization of African Unity (OAU). This decision had an effect of the sacrosanct respect for the borders inherited from the iniquitous colonial division of the Berlin Conference of 1885 in which no African took part. It refers to the colonial lie that had just been erected as absolute truth by the African political elites in business.

As for the French-speaking bloc that interests us in this paper, we are drawn to reflect on the French-language literature that has been produced since independence. The genres are many and varied: novel, poetry, theater, political speeches, essays. We will focus much more on the novel that will allow us to reveal an authentically African vision of the world.

We have only one problem at the center of our university education: how can Africans express the genius of their culture through this language that was imposed on them, and with the help of which were written some texts as detestable as On the inequality of human races by Count Arthur de Gobineau, or the famous Black Code? By what alchemy of the verb authors like Ahmadou Kourouma, Tierno Monenembo, Ibrahima Ly and Ousmane Sembène have managed to present the true face of Africa and its inhabitants to the universal human mind. In doing so, are we sure that we are talking about Africa, the real Africa we know, and not a fictional Africa imagined by creators with feverish imaginations? In fact, our paper aims to answer the following question: is it possible for the French language, responsible for so many horrors and tortures during slavery and colonization, to express Africa?