Écritures africaines de l'exil parisien

Abstract

This thesis is an analysis of the representation of Parisian exile in seven African novels in French. The novels are studied in chronological order, thus illustrating the social and psychological evolution of the theme of exile in African literature in French from the colonial era to the contemporary post-colonial context. The introduction to the thesis illustrates how the colonial history of French-speaking Africa requires a reappraisal of the ‘universal’ meaning of exile. This, in turn, leads to an analysis of critical approaches to the theme of exile in the colonial and post-colonial contexts. In the first two chapters, which study two novels written during the colonial era, the structures of colonial society are shown to be the African writer’s first experience of exile. Rather than representing an escape from cultural and historical isolation, the journey to Paris is ultimately seen to be a return to this initial exile. In the French capital, racial and sexual identity become markers of the African’s threatening difference, and ensure that the barriers to cultural integration remain intact. Chapter three analyses an important turning point in African literary representations of exile. The novel studied dates from the beginning of North-African decolonisation, and shows how the very act of writing in French becomes a reflection, and an extension, of the geographical and cultural isolation of Parisian exile. The intellectual alienation of the African writer is also contrasted with the dehumanising reality of the African immigrant worker, thus highlighting the importance of class in the study of exile. Chapters four and five explore post-colonial African writers deepening preoccupation with the ambiguous relationship between writing and exile, and with the conflict between individual and collective exile. The final chapter also analyses such questions. However, the African feminist perspective of the author studied highlights the ways in which the African writer’s approach to Parisian exile continues to evolve. Exile remains a delicate balance between debilitating isolation and creative potential, but it is this very ambiguity of exile which opens new possibilities for the African writer to define him/herself.