By looking at engagée literature from the recent past, when the francophone African writer was implicitly seen as imparted with a mission, to the present, when such authors usually aspire to be acknowledged primarily for their work as writers, Contemporary Francophone African Writers and the Burden of Commitment addresses the currrent processes of canonization in contemporary francophone African literature. Odile Cazenave and Patricia Célérier argue that aesthetic as well as political issues are now at the forefront of debates about the African literary canon, as writers and critics increasingly acknowledge the ideology of form. Working across genres but focusing on the novel, the authors take up the question of renewed forms of commitment in this literature. Their selected writers range from Mongo Beti, Ousmane Sembène, and Aminata Sow Fall to Boubacar Boris Diop, Véronique Tadjo, Alain Mabanckou, and Léonora Miano, among others.

Récit autobiographique écrit par Laye à l'âge de 25 ans. La vie quotidienne, les traditions et les coutumes des habitants de la Haute-Guinée dans les années 1930 et 1940. Un classique. [SDM].

An exploration of African literary production in France and its socio-economic implications.

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Recent research has revealed that the borrowings in Yambo Ouologuem’s epochal novel Le Devoir de violence (Bound to Violence) are far more extensive than was previously thought. Accused of plagiarism, Ouologuem quit the Parisian literary world and returned to a definitive silence in Mali. This book attempts to provide both a complete table of the borrowings in Le Devoir de Violence and a new theory of their meaning. Miller dispels the myth that the borrowings are minor, negligible, or criminal; he argues that they are artful “thresholds,” openings to a profound reconsideration of African history. Ouologuem set up this system of borrowings as a way to invite readers down unexpected paths of meaning. The borrowings are not mere stunts; they are inseparable from Ouologuem’s radical revision of African history and his rejection of Negritude. The table of borrowings in part three of this book will serve as a resource for readers and scholars.

"The work of polymath Jean-Francois Lyotard has proved seminal in the best sense of the word: original and historical, both fundamental and far-reaching, neither partisan nor exclusive. This retrospective volume deals with the extraordinary breadth of Lyotard's thought and his wide-ranging impact on critical thinking in the late twentieth century." --Book Jacket.