International Journal of Francophone Studies - Volume 12, Issue 2-3, 2009

The signatories of the manifesto calling for a new relationship between French and Francophone literatures have also criticized Francophonie as a form of colonialism. But for two reasons it is unlikely that their view, on top of criticism from many other sources, will have any impact on Francophonie today. By drawing on Wilder's theory that France and its former colonies should be analyzed as a single unit, and by reframing Francophonie in all its forms in both longer and wider contexts, obstacles to elimnating Francophonie will become apparent. The first barrier is the momentum of French. It diffused as a language of colonization from the Middle Ages in France to Africa since the seventeenth century, a phenomenon described as the politics of culture. The second is the force of French politics from the hard policy of military intervention since 1960 to the soft approach of growing involvement in Francophonie, a period characterized by the culture of politics. Francophonie and la Franafrique are the threads that bind these two powerful political currents, historic and contemporary. Together, they constitute an obstacle unlikely to be swept away by critics of Francophonie.

To reject the term Francophone, that describes so well non-hexagonal literatures and puts them in dialogue with Anglophone, Hispanophone or Sinophone literatures, is tantamount to acquiescing to the metropole's old assimilationist agendas. The manifesto pour une littrature-monde en franais (Le Bris et al. 2007) is a well-meaning but clumsy attempt at renaming other literatures in order to have them fit into the world Republic of Letters as defined and understood by a universalizing French perspective. By ignoring the specificities of bilingualism, the manifesto remains indifferent to the rhetorical practices that are the philological hallmark of many Francophone texts. This essay surveys some of the negative reactions to the manifesto and proposes a definition of francophonies, in the plural, that opens up literature to new and productive understandings of universality in a decentred and multilingual world.

The manifesto Pour une littrature-monde en franais (Barbery et al. 2007) signed by 44 writers and published in Le Monde des livres on 16 March 2007, on the one hand, and the companion volume of essays Pour une littrature-monde (Le Bris et Rouaud 2007) published by Gallimard two months later, on the other hand, reveal significant internal contradictions pertaining to the key notion of world-literature in French. This article discusses in depth several such contradictions, of both an ideological-discursive and aesthetic nature, in order to identify their conceptual sources.

This article offers a critique of the contradictions and problems in Michel Le Bris' manifesto(s) for a littrature-monde en franais (Le Bris et al. 2007), seeing the manifesto as a new iteration of francophonie and a retreat from the urgent intellectual and artistic work of confronting the aftermath of colonialism in France. Starting with an analysis of the manifesto's mistaken and incomplete appropriation of anglophone postcolonial literary models such as Salman Rushdie, the article argues that in its straw-man attack on structuralism and its general anti-intellectualism, its dismissal of history and power relations, its embrace of Conrad, Stevenson, and H. Rider Haggard, its overvaluation of travel per se, its reaffirmation of a colonial exotic whereby writers from the periphery provide colour and vitality to renew an enfeebled Europe, and in its vatic romanticism, the manifesto is really a plea to move backward towards the values and ideas of the late nineteenth century, rather than a manifesto that moves towards a literary future.

In the global language system that is likely to emerge, the struggle between English and French seems to be in favour of the former language. The present article argues that the foreseeable receding of French internationally can be explained by the correlation between language and nationalism. The article is divided into four parts. The first one describes the evolution of ex-colonial subjects' attitudes towards the ex-colonial languages. The second part shows how English has adapted to new postcolonial contexts by liberating itself from its national origin and imperial past, while French has not. The third part examines French linguistic culture which is grounded in linguistic purism, assimilation and the refusal to accept non-white language users. The use of notions such as littrature francophone is an expression of the exclusive nature of this ideology which makes French a closed language. The fourth and final part presents some recent (nationalist) reactions towards ex-colonial languages in former colonies.

This contribution considers the publication of the Manifeste de quarante-quatre crivains pour une langue franaise libre de son pacte exclusif avec la nation (Barbery et al. 2007) as a manifestary phenomenon. As such, it is part of a history of French-language manifestos that have been instrumental in expressing and enacting solidarity and solidary resistance to marginalization within the Francophone/French world binary. Using Marxian and postcolonial theories as well as theories of affect, this article studies solidarity as it is articulated in manifestos such as Aim Csaire's (1942) En guise de manifeste littraire; Jean Bernab, Patrick Chamoiseau and Raphal Confiant's (1993) loge de la Crolit; Jacques Stephen Alexis's (1946) Lettre aux Hommes Vieux; the conclusion of Frantz Fanon's (2002) Les damns de la terre, the Manifeste du FLQ; Michle Lalonde and Denis Monire's (1981) Cause commune: Manifeste pour une internationale des petites cultures, of course the Manifeste pour une littrature-monde (Barbery et al. 2007), and Ernest Breleur et al.'s February 2009 Manifeste pour les produits de haute ncessit. Ultimately, the article reflects on the nature of the manifesto as a dual form both literary and political and on the insights that manifestary solidarity may provide in restructuring the binaries of francophonie versus France, periphery versus centre, politics versus art, and artist versus critic.

Advocates for jettisoning the term francophonie in favour of littrature-monde argue that francophonie, as a word and a concept, represents the legacy of a colonial relationship that places France at the centre of the globe. One of the pernicious effects of such an organization is how the francophonie label prepares readers to approach the text as a sociological tract or an opportunity for literary tourism. This article focuses on this last problem: how can one shift the way that readers approach a text? In analyzing Ernest Ppin's L'Envers du dcor (2006), it suggests that Ppin offers one path for the transformation of tourists and by extension, of readers. Informed by douard Glissant's theorization of la potique de la Relation (1990), this reading of Ppin develops a theory of the conversation as a means of answering the question posed implicitly in the littrature-monde manifesto, transforming the relationship between readers and texts within the French literary sphere.

Farida Belghoul's use of Ralph Ellison's notion of invisibility, in her novel Georgette! (Belghoul 1986) is an example of the ways in which migrant literature in France is part of littrature-monde by engaging in a dialogue with other literatures (in this case an African-American author) beyond the French or Francophone context. This article focuses on the ways in which Belghoul in Georgette! uses Ellison's method to translate into fictional form the historical invisibility of the subject constructed as racialized other. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which the relationship between the written word and the history of slavery and colonialism is given new interpretations in Invisible Man (Ellison 1952 1995) and in Georgette!. Belghoul draws on Ellison's method by challenging the constructed border between textuality and orality. Her novel engages the reader in a dynamic relationship with the literary text by prioritizing at times orality, and visual representations that question written texts as fixed and permanent manifestations. Thus, Ellison's poetics of invisibility enable Belghoul to reconsider language, nation and culture as notions to be reconstructed and reinvented. This process points to the possibilities of fruitful exchanges and dialogues between writers from distinct linguistic, cultural, and literary traditions who have in common a history of domination and alienation.

La Femme de Gilles, a novel written by the Belgian author Madeleine Bourdouxhe and published in 1937, highlights the everyday life of a woman, lisa, in the working class world of the 1930s. By showing that lisa's passionate love for her husband Gilles allows her to escape the domestic and social constraints of her existence, my analysis aims to point out the limiting effects of certain discourses that confine the cultural and aesthetic dimensions of literary works to a systematic theoretical field, such as that of francophonie or feminism. Bourdouxhe's novel can be seen as illustrating not only the complex identity of Belgian literature in French, but also the questions raised by contemporary Francophone writers through their creation of a littrature-monde that claims its independence from restrictive categories.

The extent of the mtropole's dimensions inside or outside France, real or imaginary, is still an incomplete story. Contemporary critics such as Anne-Rosine Delbart, Stphane Dufoix, Ramona Bordei-Boca, Roxana Verona and Martine Fernandes to name only a few filled some important gaps and published research challenging the latest oversimplification of Francophonie. The astute new categories these researchers propose literary, social and historical urge French and Francophone studies scholars to re-evaluate their field. Based on literary works by French and Francophone writers of various backgrounds such as Eduardo Manet, Eugne Ionesco, Paul Goma, Abd al-Rahman Munif, Abdellatif Labi, Mahmoud Darwish, etc., this article makes a case for a new dimension of francit sustained by human rights literature in French. Moreover, evidence of writers who speak Francophone and write Francophone (contrary to the 2007 manifesto Pour une littrature-monde en franais denying their existence) prove that Francophonie's lifeline remains rich and strong.

Since 1999, contemporary Francophone authors writing in Morocco have increasingly drawn on humanist themes to meld the ironies and challenges of their contemporary society. They share the same values and belief systems as other humanists writing in our contemporary world. Authors such as Saoud Bahchar, Youssouf Elalamy and Mohamed Nedali among many others writing and publishing their works exclusively in Morocco have founded a philosophy that exemplifies a new vision of Francophone literature as a consummate form of writing for promoting our commonalities through the global, human experience. Their works are truly those of a littrature-monde.

The concept of francophonia tends to remain homogeneous and fixed in official and day-to-day parlance. Non-native speakers of French who live outside the geographic French-speaking world(s) and who use the language on a daily basis (often with other non-native speakers) are not systematically included in the notion of Francophonia. This article suggests a new perspective on francophonia, the third circle, which is based on extraterritoriality, instability and liquid identification in interaction. A deconstruction of discourses on Francophonia, the solid native speaker and francophone culture will provide the basis for a definition of liquid francophonia.

The way we view literature is historically conditioned, and the view of literature as nationally based does not extend back much further than the nineteenth century. Recently, it has become clear, that there are many authors writing in a language that is not that of their original culture, and this has been termed migrant literature, which we view as a new phenomenon. However, it is clear that there have been migrant authors writing in French for at least a hundred years. Other ways of considering non-French literature in French have been theorized in terms of francophonie or postcolonialism. The question is posed of whether we can envisage a single approach to this question, englobing these notions as well as that of migrant literature.

In recent years world-literature in French has been heading towards a melancholic place. One reason may be that literature as cultural institution in France is slowly fading into less relevant forms that promote identity or even what the body politic refers to as national essence. Is it possible to acknowledge Francophone literature without its historical and theoretical frames? Is it condemned to continue to look back while making headways? Any scholar would be under the impression that France finds itself caught between its past and the stakes of globalization. Not surprisingly the French language has become more disseminated just like the old French Franc that has dissolved into the Euro zone. This uneasiness stands at the core of any study if only because literary production and reception have been growing apart. The clear distinction between the standing of Francophone studies in North America and in France is a point in case. As for postcolonial theories and discourse, one can only point to their limitations when it comes to addressing world-literature in French. It seems that cultural hegemony has replaced the old economic patterns. One implications of world-literature in French is to set the discourse back on values rather than on institutions.

This article examines the ideological challenges to francophonie and universality initially raised in the Pour une littrature-monde en franais (2007) manifesto and elaborated further by the contributing authors to the accompanying volume of essays. The multiple perspectives and modes of expression that emanate from a wide range of writers constitute a cohesive unit defending a common cause equality and diversity in French language literatures. Yet this polyphony of voices from within the littrature-monde movement represents its most powerful provocation, defying a uniform approach to the argument and instead reinventing francophonie and universality with a series of different propositions. By exploring how the boundaries and constraints of the institutionalized interpretations of francophonie and universality are stretched and modified by these writers, it may be possible to determine whether littrature-monde can effectively circumvent or overcome obstacles to inclusion for all writers of French language literatures.

There is a new proliferation of literary works composed in French by women from around the world. The manifesto, Pour une littrature-monde en franais (2007) bears the signatures of a stunningly diverse handful of women writers such as Maryse Cond, Ananda Devi, Nancy Huston, Anna Mo, and Brina Svit, who exemplify this significant phenomenon. The contributions of authors like Eva Almassy and Chahdortt Djavann to the 2007 book, Pour une littrature-monde (Le Bris and Rouaud 2007), also give evidence of the fact that women from a variety of backgrounds are now making unprecedented contributions to the French-language literary scene, and it is no accident that they are speaking out in favour of a movement that seeks to abolish hierarchical differences between French and Francophone that reign in the publishing world in France. If women from outside France who have chosen to write in French almost uniformly argue for a new conception of francophonie, whether they are from former French colonies or elsewhere, it is because they are keenly aware of the complicated political and economic factors that make up the system in which they publish, and they want their works of fiction to be read and accepted not for ethnological or anthropological reasons, but instead for their creativity and innovation, for their literary value.

Littrature-monde in French cannot be divorced from world writing in other languages, nor can the choices made by writers in different languages be divided from each other: the right to choose and the choice to write in one or more languages have more in common than first meets the eye. This essay sets out to explore the commonality within a diverse group: non-French natives who write in French, native English speakers who write in a language other than English and writers both in French and English whose writing in those languages is influenced by their own ethnic origins. The examples include several writers: Canadian and Qubcois (Jacques Godbout, Nancy Huston, Larissa Lai), Belgian (Grgoire Polet), Chinese-French (Franois Cheng) and Canadian-Irish (Pdraig Siadhail). The distinction between vrai-faux (an object recognized at some levels as not authentic) and faux-vrai (counterfeit) dilemma also confronts writers who cross linguistic and cultural barriers, leading to the question of what constitutes profound identity as opposed to legal identity in such cases.

Even if all those who signed the manifesto want the same thing, that is, a world literature in French, that would not make any distinction between French and Francophone literature. It becomes obvious when reading the edited volume by Michel Le Bris (2007) that, as far as the Parisian literary system is concerned, Francophone writers don't have the same view as the French. Consequently, Alain Mabanckou, Nimrod, Raharimanana and Abdourahmane Wabri mainly stress the need for an end of institutionalized francophonie. In fact, for these African authors, calling them Francophone writers is a way of degrading their literary production since francophonie is but a ghetto. This commentary argues that the phrase world literature is for them a way of redefining and repositioning themselves, and that the real problem for many African writers is mainly related to the luck of publishing houses and there is a need to address this problem.

Pour une littrature-monde published jointly by the founders of the literary Festival Etonnants-Voyageurs, Michel Le Bris and Jean Rouaud (2007), is incontrovertibly a first in the history of Francophone literature and represents an entirely legitimate endeavour to question some of the basic contradictions that characterize their reception in metropolitan France, achieved mainly through the prism of categories of thought and knowledge devised within a colonial context. This article is organized in three sections: the first is an attempt to provide insights into theoretical postulations of the notion of littrature-monde, the second explores its subterranean linguistic implications, and the third deals with its mode of functioning and its articulation in literary and artistic practice. In sum, what will be highlighted here are the implications for writers from the periphery, of the emergence of this new literary space which opens up possibilities to liberate them from the constraints and limitations of territoriality and nationality.