Nos Ancetres, les Diallobes : Cheikh Hamidou Kane's Ambiguous Adventure and the Paradoxes of Islamic Negritude

This article examines the philosophical paradoxes of African negritude, as they determine and are scrutinized in the novel L'aventure ambiguë (1961). The primary means by which this narrative interrogates the logic of negritude is through the re-inscription of racial dialectics as an opposition between two "logi": the word of French modernity against the word of African Islam. To interrupt the irresolvable contest between Africa and Europe that initiates negritude, Kane portrays Islam as a cultural presence in Francophone Africa that is as significant as "blackness" and "whiteness," but which identifies with neither. With its tragic ending and persistent tone of elegy, L'aventure ambiguë can be seen as negritude's swansong, even as it offers the most sophisticated exposition of negritude values anywhere in the African novel.