Alternative facts, kleptocratic regimes, vulgar authoritarians who claim to speak in the
voice of the people even as they orchestrate spectacles of opulence and violence—for
generations, francophone authors have grappled with these and other aspects of
postcolonial rule. In this seminar, we will read a number of literary texts that narrate
uneasy passages from the colonial period through the era of independence and on into
variously configured neocolonial states and totalitarian regimes. In the first part of the
semester, we will focus primarily on novels from the 1970s and 1980s, all of which
register deep disillusionment with postcolonial nationalism. In the second part of the
semester, we will consider a group of more recent novels that extend the critique of
nationalism even as they take on contemporary dynamics of globalization, debt, and
private indirect government. Throughout our discussions, we will focus on the literary
forms and stylistic practices that characterize these texts, paying particular attention to
questions of narrative structure, generic affiliation, and the experimental use of language
and writing to represent the tortuous speech of the dictator, as well as the possibility of its
undoing. We will also pay close attention the always-excessive body of the dictator, and
to the bodies of subjects upon whom power is violently imposed (but who may continue
to circulate even after death as images, as ghosts, as scraps of writing). In addition to
selected secondary material, readings are likely to include: Aimé Césaire, La tragédie du
roi Christophe; Maryse Condé, Heremakhonon (En attendant le bonheur); Sony Labou
Tansi, La vie et demie; Ousmane Sembène, Le dernier de l’Empire; Henri Lopes, Le
Pleurer-Rire; Aminata Sow Fall, L’ex-père de la nation; Ahmadou Kourouma, En
attendant le vote des bêtes sauvages; Mongo Beti, Trop de soleil tue l’amour; Boubacar
Boris Diop, Kaveena; Yasmina Khadra, La dernière nuit du Raïs.