The French-speaking black African countries are celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of their independence. The literature has witnessed immediate emancipation. Literature so young that it is not surprising for a reader African cross some classic authors he read in high school or college. Do we know for example that the Ivorian Ahmadou Kourouma (photo) - who in 2000 was attributed to the Renaudot Allah is not obliged - was in fact long been a classic in French-speaking? Bernard Dadi, another Ivorian, enjoys this status and wanders the streets, shaking hands with women who sell attieke in the markets of Abidjan. Cheikh Hamidou Kane, author of the legendary adventure ambiguous gives advice to young writers of Senegal. Many schoolchildren in Central Africa have had during the trials of French dictation excerpts from works by Henri Lopes, the Congolese writer currently residing in France. When I talk to him, he smiled, forgetting the lashes I bailed because of mistakes made during this terrible ordeal. Difficulty or fun to wear the status of "living classic"? No doubt both even in France we would hesitate to recognize the privilege of conventional JM G Le Clezio, Pierre Michon, Patrick Modiano and Pascal Quignard.
Youth of Francophone African literature should not obscure the fact that there are ancient texts in African languages and oral literature that dates back to time immemorial. Mali's Amadou Ba Hampaté was right to proclaim to the forum Unesco in 1960: "In Africa when old man dies a library burns .
Written literature came much later, with the "encounter" the white man. During the period of literate Africans texts on Africa were mainly from Western authors. It was the reign of colonial literature with the sin of the exoticism associated with such an approach. The "Black African literature" has emerged only from the time when Africans have "hijacked" the colonizer's language to tell themselves the world, confirming the passage proverb often quoted by Hampate Ba " When a goat is present, one should not bleat its place " .
Placed under the sign of the claim, this literature was fundamentally committed and "missionnée. In 1948, with the Anthology of New Poetry and Malagasy negro French language published by Senghor and prefaced by Jean-Paul Sartre that literature Negro African consolidates. Two novelists mark the years fifty: Camara Laye ( L'Enfant Noir ) and Mongo Beti ( City Cruel ). Introduced the first self-fiction, places the individual at the heart of the story while the second carries the virulence of the founders of Negritude. Two competing designs whose consequences are still evident in contemporary productions. After independence the most iconic works are those of the Malian Yambo Ouologuem ( The duty of violence ) and Ahmadou Kourouma ( The Suns of Independence) . Ouologuem opts for the insolence of the mind and points the responsibility of Africans about their woes while Kourouma scrutinizes the clash between traditional African societies and civilization model imposed by the West.
In the late seventies, the criticism against colonization is "replaced" by the plea against dictatorships now entrenched in most African countries. Sony Labou Tansi is one of the leading authors of that era. Life in ½ , installing in the heart of the character of African fiction dictator - like the Latin American authors - Labou Tansi also drew the figure of the rebel immortal nemesis of the dictatorship. It was also during this time that the female voices, previously unknown, are heard with Mariama Ba ( So Long a Letter), Aminata Sow Fall (Strike beaten) or Ken Bugul (The crazy baobab).
In the years ninety the wind of democracy blowing across the continent after the "discourse of La Baule delivered June 20, 1990 by François Mitterrand. But Africa is the scene of civil wars. We discover with astonishment the "child soldiers", and novelists seize the theme - including Ahmadou Kourouma (Allah is not obliged ). The most sensational drama came in 1994 with a genocide in Rwanda planned and executed by Hutus against Tutsis. Works of fiction in which echo The eldest of the orphans of Monénembo Tierno, Murambi Boubacar Boris Diop and Harvest of skulls Abdourahman Waberi. Abundant "witness literature" will follow the literature by survivors. Since the late ninety a new generation of writers has emerged with names that are becoming more and more: Leonora Miano, Fatou Diome Sami Tchak Gilbert Gatore etc.. Almost all live in Europe or the United States and publish their books in France, resulting in a "deterritorialization" of "black thought". This is not new: Senghor, Cesaire, Mongo Beti etc.., Published their works from abroad while the large "black movements" were born in Paris or the United States.
Finally, black African literature in French is widely popularized in American universities where it is an autonomous discipline and very popular. Way that many observers would like France to take because there is no doubt that the works of these authors contribute to the foremost literary heritage of French expression.
Alain Mabanckou
This text was published in full in Le Monde (in opening, and on page 4 of "World of Books" April 15, 2010).