FR20300

This module examines Francophone literary works engaging with the histories and contemporary realities of West Africa from the era of the Atlantic slave trade and precolonial state formations to the present. Our focus will be on how writers have narrated and reimagined violence, displacement, colonial conquest, political and religious change, urbanization, and postcolonial crisis across different periods of West African history. Particular attention is given to the relationship between literature, memory, and knowledge in a region long represented as marginal and denied historical agency. We’ll question how literary writing acquires a distinctive epistemological role in contexts where archives are often absent, fragmentary, uneven, or shaped by colonial interests. Through novels, autobiographical narratives, and travel writing, we'll discuss how literary texts reconstruct social worlds and engage with questions of historicity, narrative perspective, social transformation, and the production of knowledge about past and present societies. Readings may include works by West African and other Francophone writers engaging with West African histories, such as Maryse Condé, Tierno Monénembo, Mariama Bâ, Amadou Hampâté Bâ, Ahmadou Kourouma, and Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, alongside selected historical and theoretical sources.

All primary texts are in French, and most supplementary materials are also provided in the language. While the lectures and end-of-term exam will be in English, the tutorials and midterm oral exam will be in French. Because French is a foreign or second language for nearly all students, all French‑language components of the module are structured to be accessible and supportive, with tutorials and the midterm oral exam designed to help you build your analytical voice in French at a pace appropriate to your level.