Autobiographical Intertextuality in Novelistic and Essayistic Production of Henri Lopes and Alain Mabanckou
(2015) Autobiography as a Writing Strategy in Postcolonial Literature — ISBN: [978-1-4438-7157-0], p. 100-112, published
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- Abstract
- Since its inception in the 1920s, African francophone literature has largely been based on the authors’ own experience. Suffice it to mention les romans de formation of the 1950s-1960s focusing on a young black intellectual’s encounter with the European civilization and its values sometimes described in a jovial manner (Un Nègre à Paris by B. Dadié), but more often depicted in a gloomy tone (L’Aventure ambiguë by Cheikh H. Kane). The 1990s marked by a mass exodus of Africans to Europe, in particular, to France, saw a drastic change of the narrative space and vectors, with marginalized personalities and clandestine immigrants taking the spotlight. This fact highlights the opening of a new literary dimension - the so-called Afrique sur Seine (J. Chevrier, O. Cazenave). Nevertheless, autobiographical elements remain tightly woven into the narrative fabric. As R. Barthes points out, all texts are “a new tissue of past citations”. Thus, literary production of H. Lopes and A. Mabanckou offers a perfect illustration of this phenomenon. Intertextuality of autobiographical nature inherent in their works may be roughly subdivided into several categories. The first to be mentioned is what we might call “genealogical intertext”, for instance, a simulacrum of a father figure in numerous texts by H. Lopes. Onomastic intertext is recurrent as well – not only is A. Mabanckou’s mother mentioned in the author’s dedications, but her name also appears in the fictional narrative. Finally, a shrewd reader can “decipher” the citational intertext, for example, the words of H. Lopes’ grandmother are attributed to one of the characters in his novel Dossier Classé. Such omnipresence of intertextuality in the African novelistic production is more than the writers’ way of winking at a sophisticated reader (U. Eco). It is a fictional embodiment of their eternal quest for defining their past and present real selves.
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Bruffaerts, N. (2015). Autobiographical Intertextuality in Novelistic and Essayistic Production of Henri Lopes and Alain Mabanckou. In B. Lebdai (ed.), Autobiography as a Writing Strategy in Postcolonial Literature (p. p. 100-112). Cambridge Scholars Publishing. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/237125