Book contents
- African Literature in Transition
- African Literature in Transition
- African Literature in Transition
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures and Table
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I Micro-histories of Genres
- Part II Genres in Transition
- Chapter 7 African Travel Writing
- Chapter 8 Parallel Existences and Manifold Ancestries
- Chapter 9 African Prison Writings
- Chapter 10 Autobiographical Genres in French Language Writing from Africa
- Chapter 11 Queer as a Genre in African Literatures
- Chapter 12 Market Literature
- Part III Experiments with Genre
- Index
- References
Chapter 10 - Autobiographical Genres in French Language Writing from Africa
from Part II - Genres in Transition
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 February 2026
Edited by
Book contents
- African Literature in Transition
- African Literature in Transition
- African Literature in Transition
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures and Table
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I Micro-histories of Genres
- Part II Genres in Transition
- Chapter 7 African Travel Writing
- Chapter 8 Parallel Existences and Manifold Ancestries
- Chapter 9 African Prison Writings
- Chapter 10 Autobiographical Genres in French Language Writing from Africa
- Chapter 11 Queer as a Genre in African Literatures
- Chapter 12 Market Literature
- Part III Experiments with Genre
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter retraces the theoretical debates on autobiographical writing in Africa and proposes a pluralistic approach to the continuum of self-referential genres allowing for the writing of the self in postcolonial African contexts. Focusing on Francophone West Africa, firstly, the autobiographical imperative in the colonial French school system where writing on oneself was an imposed educational practice, is pointed out. Secondly, the function of autobiographical writing as a deconstruction of the condescending colonial ethnographical gaze on African cultures from the 1950s onwards is underlined. Using Cheikh Hamidou Kane’s Ambiguous Adventure and Amadou Hampâté Bâ’s set of memoirs as prominent examples, the chapter further elaborates on both the distress and richness of cultural hybridity in postcolonial life writing before venturing into the specificities of women writers’ contributions. Ken Bugul’s series of not less than five texts marked by their volatile autobiographical pact, oscillating between a referential and an autofictional mode, is analyzed in more detail. The chapter shows that African autobiographical writing in French has not produced a fixed genre that would imitate the colonizer’s canon, but rather that it is inventive in mixing and innovating established genres such as memoir, autoethnography, travelogue, childhood narrative, and autofiction.
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- African Literature in TransitionGenres of African Literature, 1900–2020, pp. 178 - 193Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2026
References
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