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S'està carregant… Batouala (1921)de René Maran
S'està carregant…
Apunta't a LibraryThing per saber si aquest llibre et pot agradar. No hi ha cap discussió a Converses sobre aquesta obra. Batouala won the Prix Goncourt in 1921, the first time an African did so. It's been hailed as the beginning of African literature in French. It's composed of sketches of life in a West African village in today's Central African Republic. It both confirms and challenges stereotypes of Africans that were common among Europeans from this period. The main character Batoula is a village chief who goes through his daily rituals and rhythms of life. A plot unfolds around a young man who is attempting to have an affair with one of his nine wives - descriptions of sex border on the pornographic but not needlessly (an uncensored version of the novel did not appear until the 1930s). The book is a jazz-age artifact for a Parisian audience, smoky dark exoticism and lyrical improvisation. Anyway, Batoula tries to kill the young man but nature intervenes with the last word. The novel is dense with native vocabulary and seems authentic. There is a lot going on in this novel. It sparked tremendous debate in the 1920s due to the Preface which is a scathing indictment of French colonialism, long before Things Fall Apart did the same for English literature. It also was a mirror of French attitudes towards the black Africans and by proxy French exotic desires. It inspired many essays and even books in defense of the French civilizing project in Africa and at home. Today it's not considered to be of high literary value, and since France is no longer colonizing Africa (if anything population trajectories have reversed) it's importance has become a matter of historical interest. Nevertheless, the rich African vocabulary, descriptions of flora and fauna, and the lyrical jazz-like improvised prose remain to its credit. I'm not sure what to make of this book. None of the characters were consistently sympathetic, and overall it seemed so pedantic in tone. But I can see for the time it was written it was startling in it's open portrayal of anti-colonialism among Africans. And there are moments when the characters' thought processes are amazingly clear, taking me inside someone else's thoughts and fears. Sense ressenyes | afegeix-hi una ressenya
Pertany a aquestes col·leccions editorialsAfrican Writers (135) Premis
French African prose can be given a beginning with the publication in 1921 of the novelBatouala. . . its sensitive portrayal of African life, with its evocation of the natural environment, could not but make a profound impression upon its African readers and offered a vivid example of what an African novel in French could be. -Abiola Irele No s'han trobat descripcions de biblioteca. |
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Google Books — S'està carregant… GèneresClassificació Decimal de Dewey (DDC)843.9Literature French French fiction Modern PeriodLCC (Clas. Bibl. Congrés EUA)ValoracióMitjana:
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Pas agréable à lire, mais intéressant. Intéressant de voir comment un Noir (René Maran est de parents guyanais et a vécu ses premières années dans les Antilles avant de faire sa scolarité dans l’hexagone, puis de débuter une carrière dans l’administration coloniale en Afrique de l’Ouest) décrit le colonialisme dans les années 20. Un Noir qui est des deux côtés : il est et se sent noir, mais il représente aussi le colon. Et ce que j’ai vu dans ce livre, c’est surtout cela, une personne tiraillée entre deux cultures, deux origines peut-être même, qui se bat intérieurement pour les réconcilier et qui n’y arrive pas. Cela rend la lecture intéressante, mais aussi d’une certaine façon poignante.
Un livre à lire pour ce qu’il dit de son auteur, donc, pour le contexte dans lequel il a été écrit, et pour la réaction qu’il a suscité. D’un côté un prix Goncourt, le premier attribué à un Noir (peut-être un signe de ce que les milieux intellectuels pensaient de la question noire et de la question coloniale à cette époque) et de l’autre une administration qui le pousse à la démission, qui sera suivie d’un relatif silence littéraire. Un témoignage historique, un livre qui fait réfléchir. Sur le chemin parcouru, sur le chemin qu’il reste à parcourir, et sur où j’en suis moi-même.