Afrique sur Seine: Une nouvelle generation de romanciers africains a Paris (review)

Immigrant literature has become a subject of inquiry in Francophone studies, especially after the rise of postcolonial studies. Mostly limited to the North African community until recently, postcolonial analyses focus on African, Caribbean, and Vietnamese immigrant writing. Afrique sur Seine by Odile Cazenave examines writings published since the mid-1980s by a new generation of African novelists living in Paris. This work grew out of Cazenave's previous book titled Rebellious Women: The New Generation of Female African Novelists (2000), in which she observed differences between female writing in Africa and in France. In her introductory chapter, she outlines the characteristics of these "African writings of the self" (8) in relation to African, French, Francophone, and diasporic literature and examines in the following four chapters their narrative and esthetic innovations, inviting critics to reevaluate their tools and categories.

Starting from Bennetta Jules-Rosette's study, Black Paris: The African Writers' Landscape (1998), and her concept of "parisianism" defined as "a cosmopolitan style of Franco-African writing" (10), Cazenave in her introduction convincingly argues that postcolonial African authors do not constitute a literary movement but rather a generation of writers. Although their works address similar issues, such as multiculturalism, universalism, and exile, and decenter African and French writing, their styles are very different. One of the strongest aspects of Cazenave's study is her attention to style: "Au décentrement de l'identité correspond un décentrement de l'écriture" (To the decentering of identity corresponds a decentering of style) (24). Linked to immigrant and diasporic literatures in Paris or London, these writings differ from previous novels centered on African students in Paris, such as those by Bernard Dadié and Cheikh Hamidou Kane, as their focus is on France rather than Africa.

In the first chapter, which represents the gist of the work, Cazenave argues that, by their emphasis on the individual, African postcolonial writers in France generally refuse any collective political position, be it on Africa or on France. The chapter is divided into three sections centered on the main characteristics distinguishing these novels from those written on the African continent. In the first section, Cazenave offers close readings of novels that display a certain distance toward Africa and whose authors refuse to be confined to littérature engagée or to socio-realism. Such novels include Simon Njami's detective novels Cercueil et Cie (Coffin and Company) (1985) and African Gigolo (1989), which are influenced by Afro-American culture and novels such as Blaise N'Djehoya's Le nègre Potempkine (The Negro Potempkine) (1988) and Bessora's novels 53 cm (1999) and Les taches d'encre (The Ink Stains) (2000), which decenter French and African discourses through linguistic invention and humor. Finally, Marie N'Diaye, whose novels tackle universal themes, illustrates this apparent refusal to deal with the African heritage. Although the categorizations that Cazenave establishes seem artificial at times, she aptly concludes that the authors' "neutrality" (67) regarding the African question problematizes the link between the Afro-parisian and the African novel.

The novels in the second section, "montre[nt] un certain interêt pour l'avenir de l'Afrique" (show a certain interest for the future of Africa) (29). However, their criticism is directed to Africans living in France and their relationship to Africans in the continent. Such novels include Daniel Biyaoula's L'impasse (The Dead End) (1997), which criticizes "la sape" (African fashion) as a symbol of authentic African identity. While these novels put into question an African "community" in Paris, novels in the third section exclusively focus on the African immigrant community. Calixthe Beyala, one of the most famous African woman writers in France, is central to Cazenave's study. She argues that Beyala's later novels propose a...