Les littératures africaines francophones : hétéronomie, normativité esthétique et conditions matérielles

Abstract

Drawing on the assumption that authorial agency is one of the most relevant issues in our postcolonial context, this essay highlights how francophone writers from Africa use their former childhood in a French colonial context as a mercantilist strategy in the global market of symbolic goods. It also shows how French publishing houses take advantage of the “exotic” pasts of African authors. Writing and publishing therefore appear as intertwined processes using “strategic exotism” and aiming at the marketing of the literary product. In light of two accounts of childhood by Laye Camara and Jean-Martin Tchaptchet, I focus not only on the marketing of the domination of African francophone literature vis-à-vis France, but also on the often cherished but sometimes overlooked aspect of childhood in a former French colony. Using Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory, I show that no matter how dependent the above-mentioned authors may be on Paris as a headquarters for transnational publishing in French, the writer is still one of the main actors of the marketing of his “difference,” who creates saleable fiction out of his childhood while striving for national and international recognition.