World Literature, Littérature-Monde: Which Literature? Whose World?

Abstract

In March 2007, a literary manifesto appeared in Le Monde calling for the end of a political Francophonia and for the recognition of a litterature-monde (world-literature in French).1 Although there have been some notable exceptions, both individual and collective, over the past decade,2 the creatively oppositional role of the manifesto form, in French and more generally in Francophone literary culture, had for some time been in progressive decline, and the forty-four signatories of the 2007 document accordingly attracted considerable attention, in the event largely negative, in the period following its publication. Abdou Diouf, general secretary of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, took particular exception to the celebration of his institution’s decline, responding to the manifesto by accusing those who had signed it of conflating Francocentrism with Francophonie, of confusing ‘cultural exception’ with ‘cultural diversity’.3 The repercussions spread further, however: with the presidential elections just two months away, Nicolas Sarkozy felt obliged to enter the debate, outlining in an article in Le Figaro his frustration over the increasing Americanization of Francophonia: