L'effet roman: arrivée du roman dans les langues d'Afrique (review)

L'effet roman is a work that is both important and laborious. It brings together eighteen studies by scholars who are focused on a common goal: a methodology for reading works written in African languages. The explicit objectives the authors have set for themselves are conscientiously affirmed by the editors who assembled the articles: they set their main task as being to "passer en revue tous les romans pionniers édités dans chaque langue africaine òu ce genre est illustré" 'to review all the pioneering novels published in every African language where that genre is illustrated' (9). The goal thus set forth means that the articles are limited to an even more restricted context, for, based on the very acknowledgment of the scholars who brought these essays together, they originate from a three-year-long university seminar designed as a debate on the "statu des littératures écrites en Afrique, par le biais des conditions d'apparition d'une pratique littéraire" 'status of written literatures in Africa, approached from the conditions of appearance of a literary practice' (9).

The project aims specifically at covering the most diverse geographical areas, and it embraces productions from the very first written works in Malagasy, Xhosa, or Akan, to major works in Igbo, Kikuyu, Kiswahili, or even Ewe, Kabyle, Luganda, Somali, and Bambara, not to mention Fon, Oromo, and Wolof. In each case, the intial hypothesis is subjected to standardized criteria, and historiographic material is used to illuminate the most decisive periods of literary writing. The bibliography—" trop bien fouillée" 'overly detailed'—that accompanies each of the studies bears witness to this scholarly concern for proper heuristics. The work itself is divided into four parts that follow a chronological order as well as a subsequent thesis: 1) the missionary era, 2) the colonial era, 3) the national era, and 4) the experimental era. That division leads to interesting results that could be used in a classical diachronic analysis. Indeed, in each case, the authors take care to describe in minute detail the first publications, made possible by the determinant actions of Christian missions, colonial administrations, and even more particularly, academic instiutions. It even appears that the majority of the first writers were firm believers, competent and zealous teachers, and journalists determined to defend the cause of cultural assimilation.

The timeframe of the works analyzed covers the period 1904–1981, beginning with the text Raketaka Zandriko by the Madagascan Jean-Joseph Rabary, to the first novel in Fon written and commented on for the occasion by its own author, Jean-Norbert Vignondé. The appendices nevertheless point to a much later date for the timeframe, with Kuusaa Gadoo, from 1983, the first novel in Oromo (301). In every case, the presentation method as well as the development of the commentary remain the same. Still, the fictional texts published in the colonial period outnumber the totality of works that are discussed: Usamson by Samuel Mqhayi (1906), broadly described by Jeff Opland, offers an interpretative paradigm for the periods that are presented:

—first stages, including a sketch of linguistic factors, reflecting their transformation by "l'arrivée de l'écriture chez les Xhosa" 'the arrival of writing among the Xhosa' (47), beginning with the "missions anglaises et écossaises au début du XIXe siècle" 'English and Scottish missions at the beginning of the nineteenthcentury';

—emergence of publishing houses that privileged religious, didactic, and moralizing writings to edify the young "Eglise africaine" 'African church,' which were modeled on biblical texts: "Mqayi semble avoir suivi de près le récit biblique" 'Mqayi seemed to have closely followed the Biblical text';

—bibliographical summary followed by a presentation of the author's approach, and his or her efforts to bring the work to the attention of the missionary presses, as well as the publicity arranged by catechists and schoolteachers;

—composition...