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| The Tears of the Black Man
ISBN: 9780253035844
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / Indiana University Press
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter
Subjects: Language & Literature ; Sociology;
In this slender but intellectually dense collection of 12 essays, Franco-Congolese novelist Mabanckou (Black Moses) reveals and reshapes notions of black identity, arguing that in today's global community, "identity goes far beyond notions of territory or blood." In "The Identity Card," which echoes the title of a novel by Ivory Coast poet Jean-Marc Adiaffi, Mabanckou explores the role of place and displacement in the creative process: "Only when the place in which you find yourself is so completely different to your 'natural milieu' will childhood memories come surging to the surface," he observes. In "Bound to Violence," Mabanckou revisits the controversies spurred by Yambo Ouloguem's 1968 novel Le devoir de violence, which addressed the enslavement of Africans by Arabs and "African notables" before the arrival of the Europeans. Aspects of memoir figure into the essays here and there, such as in "A Negro in Paris," which recounts a conversation with a black fitness instructor in Paris about black people in America. Mabanckou's challenging perspective on African identity today is as enlightening as it is provocative. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Alain Mabanckou is a Franco-Congolese author and Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. His novels include Blue White Red , African Psycho , Broken Glass, Memoirs of a Porcupine , Black Bazaar , Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty , The Lights of Pointe-Noire , and Black Moses . He is the recipient of numerous literary prizes, such as the Grand Prix Littéraire de l'Afrique noire, Prix Renaudot, Prix Georges Brassens, and the Grand Prix de Littérature Henri Gal from the Académie Française for his life's work. Dominic Thomas is Madeleine L. Letessier Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. His books include Nation-Building, Propaganda, and Literature in Francophone Africa ; Black France: Colonialism, Immigration, and Transnationalism ; and Africa and France: Postcolonial Cultures, Migration, and Racism . |
