Destination Littérature-Monde? Travel and Language in Aux États-Unis d’Afrique

Citation

Ni Loingsigh A (2011) Destination Littérature-Monde? Travel and Language in Aux États-Unis d’Afrique. Australian Journal of French Studies, 48 (1), pp. 74-87. https://doi.org/10.3828/AJFS.48.1.74

Abstract
First paragraph: In this essay I examine Aux États-Unis d'Afrique, a text by Franco-Djiboutian author Abdourahman A. Waberi. The text was published in 2006, one year prior to the littérature-monde manifesto and the subsequent anthology Pour une littératuremonde that together present the case for the obsolescence of the literary system contained within the notion of francophone literature.1 It is significant that Waberi both signed the manifesto and contributed to the anthology, and it is therefore intriguing to determine the relationship of his text to the publicly espoused argument for a new literary system. For this reason my reading of Aux États- Unis d'Afrique demonstrates some of the ways in which the novel clarifies the issues at stake for African writing given the potential displacement of francophone writing by littérature-monde. Although this inevitably involves highlighting the inconsistencies and blank spaces of arguments informing the concept of littératuremonde, the literary text emerges from this analysis as an arguably more reliable location than theoretical debate for laying out the contours of future literary models and methods.

Journal
Australian Journal of French Studies: Volume 48, Issue 1