In Search of Camara Laye

Against the background of persistent rumors that Camara Laye's four novels were not in fact his creations but were the products of various hands—allegations that Adele King examines extensively in her book Rereading Camara Laye—the paper considers the arguments invoked to support the case against Camara Laye and argues that these claims are not sufficiently grounded to justify denying Laye authorship of the works attributed to him. The case of Laye is placed in the general context of textual ownership in francophone Africa, as exemplified by the work of writers such as Bakary Diallo, Birago Diop, and Amadou Hampaté Bâ for the light it throws on the transition from the oral tradition to the conventions that govern authorship in modern times.