Forty Years of African Literature in French: Can One Replant a Yam Whose Tendrils are Already Above Ground?

Abstract

Despite some individual undertakings such as that of the Kenyan Ngugi wa Thio’ngo, who endeavours to publish in Kikuyu, and Cheik Aliou Ndao from Senegal who writes in Wolof, the overwhelming majority of African writers do not write in their native language but rather use English, French or Portuguese. Most justify their choice with caution: ‘A novel written in Malinke would have no readers, as there are very few people from this language group who can read their own tongue’ (Ahmadou Kourouma). Others are more provocative, such as Wole Soyinka, Nobel Prize winner in Literature, who speaks of his pleasure in ‘titillating’ the coloniser’s language. But all of them wield the imposed language with a great deal of irony: French allows me to watch myself through a filter’, (Tchicaya U Tam’si) and even with open affection: ‘You talkin’ brand new French, colour nice red wine’ (Amadou Hampate Ba).