La Fabrique des classiques africains: Écrivains d'Afrique subsaharienne francophone (1960-2012) - Archive ouverte HAL Accéder directement au contenu
Ouvrages Année : 2017

La Fabrique des classiques africains: Écrivains d'Afrique subsaharienne francophone (1960-2012)

Résumé

How does a literary work become a ‘classic’ when its author is from francophone sub-Saharan Africa, one of the most deprived areas of the world according to international cultural standards? If there are names such as Léopold Sédar Senghor and Ahmadou Kourouma that are well-known everywhere, why are other writers little-known in their home country and praised in Europe, while Aminata Sow Fall and Seydou Badian – studied and discussed in Senegal and in Mali – remain overlooked in France? Far from an individualist approach, which would see the explanation of this situation in the progression of singular literary careers, this book proposes a collective social history of these writers in the twentieth century. To this end, two major protagonists are identified: cultural intermediaries ––mainly publishers – showcased in the first part; and writers born and/or socialized in francophone sub-Saharan Africa, whose literary, social and geographic trajectories are studied in the second part. Their reputations and positioning are located in relation to one another in an African literary space undergoing major changes. The empirical material comprises interviews with writers, publishers, and cultural agents; ethnographic observations of cultural events; literary texts; archives; and a statistical survey of 404 writers who were socialized in this part of the world, and who were active between 1983 and 2008. The research undertakes an analysis of classifications, along with the opportunities and discourse attributed to these authors by journalists, literary critics and publishers. Their legitimation follows two waves: the first begins in the early 1980s and the second in the mid-1990s. The increase in the number of publications, the importance of the novel in the hierarchy of literary genres, the state of the publishing industry in sub-Saharan Africa and in France, and the circulation of authors from one country to another combine to structure an African literary space: – the main stakes of which being the legitimate definition of an ‘African writer’ and the nature of the writer’s relationship to Africa. The authors located in this space are socially elite and often mobile. From the 1980s onwards, the number of new female writers increased steadily; writers became more professionalized and more often settled outside Africa. These evolutions fit into global reconfigurations: the domination of English in transnational cultural exchanges, the appearance of the category of world literature, a declining recourse to political paradigms in the French literary field from the seventies onwards, and the general disengagement of African states from the cultural sector. These tendencies have shaped the reception of these authors and their access to literary recognition. Publishers in Paris, partly dissociated from those based in African countries, have played a decisive role in the book market. The appearance of a new kind of recognition influenced by the media accounts for varying levels of success of the different literary generations. The book also looks back at the genesis and chronicles of polemical episodes such as the election of Senghor to the Académie française, and the controversy surrounding the ‘Toward a World Literature in French’ manifesto, published in Le Monde des livres in 2007, which embody divides and long-term evolutions of the African literary space. Overall, this book reveals the symbolic and material mechanisms by which contemporary writers from francophone sub-Saharan Africa have become, in various forms, ‘African classics’.
Comment une oeuvre littéraire accède-t-elle au rang de "classique" lorsque son auteur est issu d'Afrique subsaharienne francophone, l'une des zones les plus déshéritées du monde selon les standards culturels internationaux? Si les noms de Léopold Sédar Senghor et d'Ahmadou Kourouma se sont imposés partout, pourquoi d'autres auteurs, portés au pinacle en Europe, restent-ils peu connus dans leurs pays d'origine, quand les textes d'Aminata Sow Fall et de Seydou Badian, étudiés et discutés au Sénégal et au Mali, ne le sont pas en France ? Ce livre propose une histoire sociale collective de ces écrivains depuis1960. II distingue deux protagonistes majeurs : des intermédiaires culturels (organisateurs de festival, éditeurs, agents littéraires), souvent français, et des auteurs nés et socialisés en Afrique subsaharienne francophone, dont les trajectoires sont situées les unes par rapport aux autres dans un espace littéraire africain en recomposition. Nourri de nombreux entretiens, fondé sur le dépouillement d'archives inédites et sur une étude statistique, cet ouvrage majeur décrit par quels mécanismes symboliques et matériels des oeuvres d'écrivains originaires d'Afrique subsaharienne francophone sont devenus, sous différentes formes, des classiques africains.
Fichier non déposé

Dates et versions

hal-03050428 , version 1 (10-12-2020)

Licence

Paternité - Pas d'utilisation commerciale - Pas de modification

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-03050428 , version 1

Citer

Claire Ducournau. La Fabrique des classiques africains: Écrivains d'Afrique subsaharienne francophone (1960-2012). CNRS Éditions, 442 p., 2017. ⟨hal-03050428⟩
197 Consultations
0 Téléchargements

Partager

Gmail Facebook X LinkedIn More