Les figures spatio-temporelles dans le roman africain subsaharien ...

The differences between the “indirect rule” colonial policy of
the United Kingdom and the “assimilative” policy of France, together
with the stand taken by the English-speaking writers regarding the
Negritude movement, imposed in many people’s mind the concept of
an English-speaking Africa which has a completely different literary
history from French-speaking Africa. This separation between the two
literary zones in the subsaharan Africa has been studied by critics
using either French or English, confirming the differences in
narration between the African writers who have written in French
versus those writing in English. However, it can be demonstrated that
the act of colonialism, be it by the United Kingdom or by France, led
to the same result : the transition of power from African to European
hands and the reorganisation of African space-time. Meanwhile, post-
war pro-independence movements led to the independence of the
former French as well as English colonies in the 1960s. Our study
therefore endeavours to point out and to analyse literary traces of
these successive reorganisations of the African time-space by trying
to focus on what constitutes the common content in English-speaking
and French-speaking subsaharan African literary production,
particularly in the case of novels. Based on a spatio-temporal trilogy
construction (typology, figuration and temporality of space), our study
shows how the African traditional universe is idealised and then
destabilised by the intrusion of the Western Civilisation, which, in
turn, gave birth to a world of immensities in which the hero of the
idyllic world cannot find himself, and a world which corresponds to
an empty and alarming present. This new space is readable and
visible by different figures. Interactions between space and time also
demonstrate how an idyllic space can correspond to an idealised past.
516