L’Écran du bestiaire
The most critically successful works of two Central African novelists writing in French, Alain Mabanckou and Patrice Nganang, are told from the point of view of a narrator who, for one reason or another, could be considered intellectually inferior to the average person. This article will show that b...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Liverpool University Press
2016-01-01
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| Series: | Francosphères |
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| Online Access: | http://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/franc.2016.12 |
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| _version_ | 1850155196227780608 |
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| author | Jesse Welton |
| author_facet | Jesse Welton |
| author_sort | Jesse Welton |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The most critically successful works of two Central African novelists writing in French, Alain Mabanckou and Patrice Nganang, are told from the point of view of a narrator who, for one reason or another, could be considered intellectually inferior to the average person. This article will show that by appropriating negative colonial stereotypes of Africans as child-like or animal-like, writers are able to provide a counter-discursive response to these stereotypes and gain greater stylistic freedom to indigenize the former colonial language, thanks to the intermediary of what we will call the intellectually subordinate narrator – a narrator who the reader expects, and therefore accepts, to be cognitively different. We will examine how this phenomenon works as a form of strategic exoticism in Mabankou’s Mémoires de porc-épic (2006) and Nganang’s Temps de chien (2001). |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-b68d3ba894be40c19c0ebf826aee3850 |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 2046-3820 2046-3839 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2016-01-01 |
| publisher | Liverpool University Press |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Francosphères |
| spelling | doaj-art-b68d3ba894be40c19c0ebf826aee38502025-08-20T02:25:01ZengLiverpool University PressFrancosphères2046-38202046-38392016-01-015216718210.3828/franc.2016.12L’Écran du bestiaireJesse Welton0University of Melbourne/Université Paris-Ouest-Nanterre-La-DéfenseThe most critically successful works of two Central African novelists writing in French, Alain Mabanckou and Patrice Nganang, are told from the point of view of a narrator who, for one reason or another, could be considered intellectually inferior to the average person. This article will show that by appropriating negative colonial stereotypes of Africans as child-like or animal-like, writers are able to provide a counter-discursive response to these stereotypes and gain greater stylistic freedom to indigenize the former colonial language, thanks to the intermediary of what we will call the intellectually subordinate narrator – a narrator who the reader expects, and therefore accepts, to be cognitively different. We will examine how this phenomenon works as a form of strategic exoticism in Mabankou’s Mémoires de porc-épic (2006) and Nganang’s Temps de chien (2001).http://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/franc.2016.12francophone African literatureMabanckouNgananganimalchildnarrator |
| spellingShingle | Jesse Welton L’Écran du bestiaire Francosphères francophone African literature Mabanckou Nganang animal child narrator |
| title | L’Écran du bestiaire |
| title_full | L’Écran du bestiaire |
| title_fullStr | L’Écran du bestiaire |
| title_full_unstemmed | L’Écran du bestiaire |
| title_short | L’Écran du bestiaire |
| title_sort | l ecran du bestiaire |
| topic | francophone African literature Mabanckou Nganang animal child narrator |
| url | http://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/franc.2016.12 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT jessewelton lecrandubestiaire |