De Senghor à Mabanckou parricide, rhizome et éthique de l’identité

Abstract

In my dissertation, “De Senghor à Mabanckou: parricide, rhizome et éthique de l'identité,” I draw on concepts developed by Harold Bloom in The Anxiety of influence (1973) to argue that, as a francophone, sub-Saharan African writer, Alain Mabanckou has to define himself vis-à-vis authors who preceded him. More precisely, I discuss how Mabanckou situates himself with respect to Léopold Sédar Senghor, one of the fathers of la Négritude, the very first literary movement in sub-Saharan francophone Africa. I propose that Mabanckou’s stance toward Senghor includes a parricidal component that expresses itself as a reaction to the notion of littérature engagée. Liberated from what Patricia Célérier and Odile Cazenave have called “the burden of commitment,” Mabanckou asserts the right of African authors to be freed from the obligation of engaged literature related to their African identity. I nuance my analysis of this relationship, however, by elucidating the ways in which Mabanckou embraces his filiation with Senghor. Indeed, both authors valorize the diversity engendered by the encounters between different civilizations. While Senghor offers an apology of la civilisation de l’universel, Mabanckou expresses his sense of universalism through intertextuality mainly through intertextuality. The latter’s use of intertextuality allows him to reach across languages, races, nations, centuries, and genres. In doing so, his literary aesthetic showcases Édouard Glissant’s notion of identité-rhizome insofar as it demonstrates openness to contact with the other without alienation and deconstructs the notions of center and periphery. Further, Mabanckou combines other forms of artistic expression such as cinema, songs, and comics in a fashion that negates vertical classifications which inherently create an imbalance in power relations and perceptions. The two authors also agree on the usefulness of French language as a medium of expression, which sets them apart from Africans writers who reject the language of the colonizer and favor indigenous languages. My dissertation is framed by Abdourahman Waberi’s concept of enfants de la postcolonie, Oana Panaïté’s notion of poétiques transfrontalières, Gérard Genette’s work, and Anthony Kwamé Appiah’s study The Ethics of Identity among others.