Popular perceptions: voice and genre in Félix Couchoro’s crime fiction

Abstract

This essay uses a crime novel, Ici-bas, tout se paie (1966–67) by Togolese author Félix Couchoro (1900–68) to understand how critical reception and historical circumstances condition the production of popular literature in francophone Africa. Though the author’s early L’Esclave (1929) is one of the first novels of the francophone African literary canon, he is rarely mentioned beyond this foundational role. Couchoro continued to write and he published serialized fiction for the Togolese national newspaper throughout the 1960s. These later works correspond in many ways to what was going on in anglophone and vernacular popular literatures throughout the rest of the continent – most notably Onitsha market literature in Nigeria. Unfortunately, these later works also made him an awkward fit in the pre-established literary genealogy of francophone African fiction and a cause of consternation for a critical field uncomfortable with the idea of the popular. Nevertheless, that these later works also deviate from their anglophone counterparts in important ways suggests a uniquely francophone African voice that could open up new analytical possibilities. These might help finally to break the Paris-centered aesthetic standards that continue to haunt the discipline and lead to a greater appreciation of the potential for popular aesthetic and literary production in francophone Africa.