Bringing together in English translation eleven Francophone African plays dating from 1970 to 2021, this essential collection includes satirical portraits of colonizers and their collaborators (Bernard Dadié’s Béatrice du Congo; Sony Labou Tansi’s I, Undersigned, Cardiac Case; Sénouvo Agbota Zinsou’s We’re Just Playing) alongside contemporary works questioning diasporic identity and cultural connections (Koffi Kwahulé’s SAMO: A Tribute to Basquiat and Penda Diouf’s Tracks, Trails, and Traces...). The anthology memorializes the Rwandan genocide (Yolande Mukagasana’s testimony from Rwanda 94), questions the status of women in entrenched patriarchy (Werewere Liking’s Singuè Mura: Given That a Woman...), and follows the life of Elizabeth Nietzsche, who perverted her brother’s thought to colonize Paraguay (José Pliya’s The Sister of Zarathustra). Gustave Akakpo’s The True Story of Little Red Riding Hood and Kossi Éfoui’s The Conference of the Dogs offer parables about what makes life livable, while Kangni Alem’s The Landing shows the dangers of believing in a better life, through migration, outside of Africa.

What characterizes the relationship between literature and the state? Should literature serve the needs of the state by constructing national consciousness, espousing state propaganda, and molding good citizens? Or should it be dedicated to a different kind of creative social endeavor? In this important book about literature and the politics of nation-building, Dominic Thomas assesses the contributions of Francophone African writers whose works have played a key role in the recent transition to democracy in the Congo. Exploring the works of Sony Labou Tansi, Henri Lopes, and Emmanuel Dongala, among others, Thomas highlights writers intimately involved with government and politics -- whether in support of the state's vision or with the intention of articulating a more open view of citizens and society. Focusing on themes such as collaboration, reconciliation, identity, history, and memory, Nation-Building, Propaganda, and Literature in Francophone Africa elaborates a broader understanding of the circumstances of African colonization, modern African nation-state formation, and the complex cultural dynamics at work in Africa since independence.

Scholars examining literature from former French colonies sometimes view it wrongly as simply an outgrowth of colonial literature. By suggesting new ways to understand the multiple voices present, this book explores how Francophone African poetry and theatre in particular, since the 1960s, constitute both an organic cultural product and a reflection of the diverse African cultures in which they originate. Themes explored in five chapters include the many kinds of African identity formation, the resistance to former notions of literary composition as art, a remapping of social responsibility, and the impact of globalization on Francophone Africa's participation in world economics, politics and culture. This study highlights the inner workings of Francophone African literature and suggests a canonization of modern Francophone works from a world perspective.

This is the first study to be entirely devoted to African literary drama in French, a major component of African theater. Beginning with a detailed analysis of its relationship to a variety of precolonial, but sometimes still contemporary, traditions of performance that constitute part of its roots, the author examines this drama in both its literary and theatrical dimensions. He discusses its development, themes and techniques up to and including contemporary theater. The book is divided into two sections: Part One offers a theoretical and historical background; Part Two analyzes key individual plays central to the repertoire, including two from the Caribbean. All quotations are translated into English.

The final volume, an annotated world bibliography, identifies and supplys full bibliographic documentation on significant theatre materials published world-wide since 1945, plus an index to key names throughout all six volumes.

Collecting diverse critical perspectives on the topic of play—from dolls, bilboquets, and lotteries, to writing itself—this volume offers new insights into how play was used to represent and reimagine the world in eighteenth-century France. In documenting various modes of play, contributors theorize its relation to law, religion, politics, and economics. Equally important was the role of “play” in plays, and the function of theatrical performance in mirroring, and often contesting, our place in the universe. These essays remind us that the spirit of play was very much alive during the “Age of Reason,” providing ways for its practitioners to consider more “serious” themes such as free will and determinism, illusions and equivocations, or chance and inequality. Standing at the intersection of multiple intellectual avenues, this is the first comprehensive study in English devoted to the different guises of play in Enlightenment France, certain to interest curious readers across disciplinary backgrounds.

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.