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Nation-Building, Propaganda, and Literature in Francophone Africa

Author: Dominic Thomas

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2002-11-19

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 9780253109545

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.

The Francophone African Text

Author: Kwaku Addae Gyasi

Publisher: Peter Lang

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 146

ISBN-13: 9780820478302

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Focusing on the African writer and the language of the former colonial power, The Francophone African Text: Translation and the Postcolonial Experience highlights the writer's re-appropriation of the foreign language in the creative writing process. It calls attention to the African writer's use of French, a process of creative translation in which the writer's words form a hybrid code that compels the original French to refer to the indigenous African language for meaning. Examining a group of works under the theme of translation, this book reveals that a consideration of both ideological and linguistic elements enhances understanding of the subject from the broader perspective of postcolonial discourse.

Decolonizing Translation

Author: Kathryn Batchelor

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-04-08

Total Pages: 8

ISBN-13: 1317641140

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The linguistically innovative aspect of Francophone African literature has been recognized and studied from a variety of angles over recent decades, yet little attention has been paid to what happens to such literature when it is translated into another language. Taking as its corpus all sub-Saharan Francophone African texts that have ever been published in English, this book explores the ways in which translators approach innovative features such as African-language borrowings, neologisms and other deliberate manipulations of French, depictions of sociolinguistic variation, and a variety of types of wordplay. The implications of their translation decisions are drawn out with reference to the broader significances that are often accorded to postcolonial literature, and earlier critics' calls for a decolonized translation practice are explored from both a practical and theoretical angle. These findings are used to push towards a detailed investigation of the postcolonial turn in translation studies, drawing on the work of key postcolonial theorists such has Homi K. Bhabha and Gayatri Spivak. This is a timely and incisive critical assessment of contemporary discourses on the ethics and politics of translation.

Francophone African Poetry and Drama

Author: Richard J. Gray II

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2014-09-23

Total Pages: 213

ISBN-13: 0786475587

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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.

Contemporary Francophone African Writers and the Burden of Commitment

Author: Odile Cazenave

Publisher: University of Virginia Press

Published: 2011-02-02

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 0813931150

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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.

Writing as Translation

Author: Kwaku Addae Gyasi

Publisher:

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 488

ISBN-13:

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Theories of Africans

Author: Christopher L. Miller

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 1990

Total Pages: 339

ISBN-13: 0226528022

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"Situating literature and anthropology in mutual interrogation, Miller's...book actually performs what so many of us only call for. Nowhere have all the crucial issues been brought together with the sort of critical sophistication it displays."—Henry Louis Gates, Jr. ". . . a superb cross-disciplinary analysis."—Y. Mudimbe

A Rain of Words

Author: Irène Assiba d'. Almeida

Publisher:

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780813927664

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Although the past two decades have seen a wide recognition of the notable fiction written in French by African women, little attention has been given to their equally significant poetry. A Rain of Words is the first comprehensive attempt to survey the poetic production of these women, collecting work by forty-seven poets from a dozen francophone African countries. Some are established writers; others are only beginning to publish their work. Almost none of the poems here have been published outside of Africa or Europe or been previously translated into English. The poems are accompanied by brief biographies of the poets. Supplementing these are a critical introductory essay by Irène Assiba d'Almeida that places women's poetry in the context of recent African history, characterizes its thematic and aesthetic features, and traces the process by which the anthology was compiled and edited, an essay by Janis A. Mayes discussing language politics, the cultural contexts within which the poetry emerges, and literary translation strategies, and an extensive bibliography. This landmark bilingual collection--the result of ten years of research, collection, editing, and translation--offers readers of English and French entry into a flourishing and essential genre of contemporary African literature.

Francophone African Narratives and the Anglo-American Book Market

Author: Vivan Steemers

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2021-03-01

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 1793617791

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In recent years, the material circumstances governing the production of African literature have been analyzed from a variety of angles. This study goes one step further by charting the trajectories of a corpus of francophone African (sub-Saharan) narratives subsequently translated into English. It examines the role of various institutional agents and agencies—publishers, preface writers, critics, translators, and literary award committees—involved in the value-making process that accrues visibility to these texts that eventually reach the Anglo-American book market. The author evinces that over time different types of publishers dominated, both within the original publishing space as in the foreign literary field, contingent on their specific mission—be it commercial, ideological or educational—as well as on socioeconomic and political circumstances. The study addresses the influence of the editorial paratextual framing—pandering to specific Western readerships—the potential interventionist function of the translator, and the consecrating mechanisms of literary and translation awards affecting both gender and minority representation. Drawing on the work by key sociologists and translation theorists, the author uses an innovative interdisciplinary methodology to analyze the corpus narratives.

Politics in Francophone Africa

Author: Victor T. Le Vine

Publisher: Lynne Rienner Publishers

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 448

ISBN-13: 9781588262493

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Explores the elements that have shaped the particular political dynamics of the 14 former French colonies in west and equatorial Africa while allowing them to remain part of a unique francophone sociopolitical community.