Of bastards, slaves, dogs and other things: discourses of bourgeois transgression and illegitimacy in two francophone sub-saharan novels

Authors

  • Mohamed Kamara

Abstract

The emergence and rise to preeminence of the bourgeoisie on the African political, social, and economic scenes have been the stuff of many novels. One could even argue that the rise of the sub-Saharan novel (because it is inherently connected to the colonial project) is more or less concurrent with the birth and rise of this class. In this essay, I seek to analyze the discourse of bourgeois transgression and illegitimacy as exemplified in two novels: Ahmadou Kourouma‘s Les soleils des indépendances (1968) and Francis Bebey‘s Le ministre et le griot (1992). The two works focus on the ruling elite in the immediate postcolonial period. In both novels, albeit in varying degrees, the colonial school is presented as the main catalyst of the change that occasioned the transgression decried by the members of the erstwhile aristocratic nobility.

La naissance et la montée de la bourgeoisie sur les scènes politique, sociale et économique africains a été le sujet de bon nombre de romans africains. On pourrait même avancer que l‘essor du roman africain sub-saharien se faisait plus ou moins parallèlement au développement de la nouvelle élite. Dans cet essai, je propose une analyse du discours de la transgression bourgeoise tel qu‘il est élaboré dans Les soleils des indépendances d‘Ahmadou Kourouma et Le ministre et le griot de Francis Bebey, deux romans qui abordent la question de l‘élite au pouvoir à  l‘époque immédiatement après les indépendances. Dans les deux romans, l‘école coloniale est ciblée comme le catalyseur principal de la transformation sociale à  l‘origine de la soi-disant transgression bourgeoise déplorée par l‘ancienne aristocratie détrônée.


Author Biography

Mohamed Kamara

Mohamed Kamara has a BA in French and English from Fourah Bay College (the University of Sierra Leone) and an MA and PhD in French from Purdue University and Tulane University, respectively. He teaches French and Francophone literatures and cultures at Washington and Lee University, Virginia, where he is also the current chair of the Africana Studies program. Mohamed has published short stories, as well as articles on Léopold Sédar Senghor, Abdelkébir Khatibi, Birago Diop, Yulisa Amadu Maddy, the teaching of the Francophone African novel, and French colonial education. Mohamed is currently working on a book-length study of the representation of French colonial education in Francophone African literature.

 

Published

2020-07-31