Objets culturels et création romanesque chez Tierno Monénembo

Abstract

The recent excitement around the restitution of twenty-six arts objects preserved at the Musée du Quai Branly in November 2022, after years of negotiations, has opened up a broader perspective for the return of a greater number of pieces, cultural and artistic objects from the heritage of African countries formerly colonized by France. Finally, the dynamics of the return of these objects, and the problems associated with them, are more widely shared with former colonial powers including England, Holland, Belgium and even Germany. These cultural objects are strongly present in Tierno Monénembo’s novel. This contribution postulates that, at the heart of these novels and perhaps also of their creation, these cultural objects circulate, irradiating the narratives and destinies of the characters, thus stimulating novelistic creation. From Un Attiéké pour Elgass to Pelourinho and even Peuls or Les coqs cubains chantent à minuit, and other texts, we can put forward a typology of material cultural objects (sassa, fetishes, statuettes, coralline hexagrams, etc.) alongside more immaterial objects (such as the figa and the song).