Where Belgians did not fear to trade: On narrative patterns in Flemish colonial literature

Abstract

When Dutch colonial literature is mentioned, one automatically thinks of Dutch prose dealing with the former Dutch East Indies, often referred to as ‘(Nederlands-) Indische literatuur’. And yet, quite a lot of Dutch (Flemish) novels are devoted to Africa, since the Congo was a Belgian colony until 1960. Hence, quite an extensive colonial literature on Central Africa has been published in Dutch. Between 1880 and 1980 some 200 publications were released. At the turn of the century travelogues and stories by missionaries made a small beginning. Later on novels and volumes of short stories were added to the text material that supported the colonial discourse of the time. Needless to say, an impressive number of religious journals and missionary reviews added to the dissemination of what may be coined ‘colonial values’. After the independence of the Congo in 1960 some former colonists, civil servants and missionaries reflected in their literary works on the era that had come to an end. In the sixties and seventies the so-called ‘postcolonial’ Flemish literature reached remarkable heights, both in terms of production and in terms of literary value. In my approach I shall focus on the analysis of some representative novels trying to exemplify a triple process. Colonial structures seemed to have created narrative patterns which, in turn, reinforced the values and concepts of the time. The ideals of cultural evolutionism undoubtedly structured and modelled both narrative plots and literary characters. On a stylistic level the literary production helped to forge colonial metaphors which often became the hallmark of colonial discourse. That imagined community (although not always as imaginary as we might have hoped) undoubtedly showed off with its invented traditions and only few writers could resist the rhetoric of the time.