Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature
Abstract
While it had somewhat disappeared as a central preoccupation in recent African fiction, the issue of "race" comes up in a striking way in Daniel Biyaoula's first novel, L 'impasse. Published in 1996, L'impasse sets out to expose through the eye of a rather cynical first-person narrator the neurotic nature of postcolonial subjects' relation to his/her racialized origin. Focusing on the body as a site of authenticity or alienation, the novel can be read as a contemporary and creative version of the "Black experience" as Franz Fanon theorized it almost half a century before in Black Skin White Masks. This essay shows, however, that Biyaoula's discourse on alienation not only relies on but also deconstructs archetypal literary representations of the "African in Paris", while revising them in a 1990's context.
Recommended Citation
Moudileno, Lydie
(2002)
"Re-bonjour à la Négritude: la question de la «race» dans un roman des années 90, L'impasse de Daniel Biyaoula,"
Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature: Vol. 58:
No.
1, Article 8.
Available at:
https://crossworks.holycross.edu/pf/vol58/iss1/8
Included in
French and Francophone Literature Commons, French Linguistics Commons, Other French and Francophone Language and Literature Commons