Wednesday 30th May - Ruth Bush (Wolfson College)

L’aventure ambiguë: Publishing African literature in the world republic of letters 1945–1970

Respondent: Sarah Puello (Wolfson College)

17.00-18.30
Balliol College, Massey Room

Drinks and nibbles provided

Attendees of the First Congress of Black Artists and Writers, held at the Sorbonne in 1956

Paper and Discussion 

Through a framework informed by Bourdieu’s field theory and Pascale Casanova’s notion of a ‘World Republic of Letters’, Ruth’s paper examined the institutional contexts (artistic, political, mercantile) surrounding the publication of Senegalese author Cheikh Hamidou Kane’s 1961 novel, L’Aventure ambiguë. Drawing on an impressive range of empirical material—interviews conducted with authors and publishers, bibliographies of ‘African’ literature, archival documentation, and a close reading of Kane’s literary output—, Ruth used L’Aventure ambiguë as a test-case to argue for the necessity of a more nuanced and multidirectional history of French publishing than that signaled in Casanova’s République mondiale des lettres.

A slew of questions followed, with discussions ranging from the relationship between ghost-writing and French publishers of ‘African’ novels, the role played by figures such as Gide and Sartre in Présence Africaine (a Paris-based publishing house and journal), the consecratory role of literary prizes and their selection panels, and the role of (self-)censorship in the processes of writing and publishing. 

Abstract


The post-war period witnessed a surge in the publication of fiction and poetry of and on sub-Saharan Africa in the years leading to the independences of 17 African countries in 1960. The vast majority of this publishing in French took place in Paris, arguably the capital of a “world republic of letters” (Pascale Casanova). This paper will consider the contested, often unspoken, rules by which texts entered this field, according to the aesthetic, political, and commercial stakes of authors and publishers. Based on archival research, interviews, paratextual analysis, and close-reading, the publishing trajectory of Cheikh Hamidou Kane’s “classic” text, L’aventure ambiguë, will be traced against a cartography of publishers of “African” literature in this period. By evaluating Casanova’s model and the pertinence of Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory, this paper will argue for a necessarily multidirectional and transnational history of the book in France.


Biography

Ruth is a third year DPhil student at Wolfson. She previously studied at Wadham College,Oxford, Edinburgh University, and the EHESS. Her thesis explores the theoretical implications of a revised history of publishing “African” literature in the period 1945 – 70. She has published an article in the Bulletin of Francophone Postcolonial Studies, and has papers forthcoming in the Journal of Postcolonial Writing and in a book entitled Intimate Enemies: Translating Francophone Texts (LUP 2013).