Literature can be defined as all the literary works of a country or an era. It can also be defined as the set of texts that deal with a subject. Francophone literature is broader than French literature, this notion is also more recent, it was born in many countries formerly colonized by France.
I therefore allow myself to define French-language literature as a literary genre built on cross-heritages, sometimes antagonistic. Even through a thought of relocation, we inherit a literary heritage through a territory and its past.
It was in 1880 that the geographer Onésime Reclus coined the word ” francophonie to designate all populations using French. We can distinguish four faces of this Francophonie: the countries where French is the mother tongue (French-speaking Europe and Canada); Creole countries (where French is a second but related language); those who have French as their official language or language of use (which were, for the most part, French colonies); and countries where French is a preferred foreign language (as sometimes in Central and Eastern Europe).
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Note that a story can be French-speaking without its author being.
My pen, my identity
In the West Indies, the French language is inaccessible to the vast majority of the population. This is explained because in the 1930s, you had to assert your identity as a black man. Since this period, black intellectuals in Martinique, Guadeloupe and Guyana have sought to define their cultural identity.
The Negritude movement, inaugurated with Pigments by Léon Gontran DAMAS (1937) and The notebook of a return to the native land d’Aimé Césaire, (1939), pushed back the cultural predominance of France. Negritudeas developed by Aimé Césaire, demonstrated that the first step was to go to Africa, the land of origin, to better examine the paths of the future.
Aimé Césaire addresses the theme of the black hero, his emancipation, the flaws of colonialism, revolution, Africa and tyranny. His poetry is a true manifesto of Negritude.
The themes of revolt, glorification of Africa’s past and nostalgia for the harmony of the society of the ancestors are a common feature of the Negritude movement, these themes are found in other great writers and poets. West Indians influenced by this current.
Frankétienne, an essential name in French-language literature
Frankétienne, was born on April 12, 1936 in Ravine Sèche, in a rural section of Artibonite, Haiti. Her mother was raped by an American when she was still very young. This primal scene is first and foremost a story for the almost white child, brought up without knowing his father, in a working-class black environment. But it will become the main motif of one of his most accomplished books, H’Eros-Chimeras (Carbet Prize 2002). Frankérienne had first started to publish poetry, as early as 1964.
In total, Frankétienne has published over forty books. He has won numerous literary awards. In 2004, he received the Pablo Neruda Prize; in 2005, the Grand Prix insulaire d’Ouessant; in 2006, the Latin Union Prize for Romance Literature and was a laureate, the same year, of the Prince Claus of Holland Foundation. The former Minister of Culture also received the insignia of Commander of Arts and Letters in June 2010.
Also, he was named artist for peace by Unesco, in 2010, in recognition “of his contribution to French-speaking literature, his commitment to the safeguarding and defense of Haitian culture and his contribution to the promotion of the ideals organisation “.
The Grand Prix de la Francophonie was awarded to him in June 2021 by the French Academy. This prize is intended to crown “the work of a French-speaking individual who, in his country or internationally, has contributed in an eminent way to the maintenance and illustration of the French language”.
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Spiralism according to Frankétienne
With Jean-Claude Fignolé and René Philoctète, Frankétienne is the initiator of the “spiralist movement” which he defines as an aesthetic of chaos. This name of spiralism had come to them when reading Engels’ work, “antiduring”.
In addition, Frankétienne highlighted the notion of schizophony, which allows words to be treated as particles of sensual energy, in perpetual motion within the text.
According to Franck Etienne, the spiral represents a new genre which makes it possible to translate the palpitations of the modern world. The spiral work is constantly in motion. This is what partly explains this series of breaks in the development of the text. Moreover, there is no need to build the work from a specific subject. Writing then becomes a real adventure, that of a multipolar story where each word, acting as a trigger, is likely to turn into a nucleus ready to disintegrate to give birth to other verbal entities. In this sense, the spiral is fundamentally an open work, never finished. The spiral is an attempt to capture reality in the diversity of its aspects».
The aesthetics of the spiral is nourished by many elements, it results both from everyday life, ephemeral news, vivid utopias, sublime dreams, fabulous planetary mythologies and the density of poetic saying.
René Depestre, a black poet from the Caribbean committed body and soul
René Depestre was born in Jacmel, Haiti, in 1926. He studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and frequented surrealist poets during this period. His first collection of poetry appeared in 1945 and his first novel in 1979. He is a poet, novelist and essayist. He was expelled from France in 1950 because of his involvement in the decolonization movements in France. René Depestre received the Prix Goncourt de la Nouvelle in 1982 for Hallelujah for a woman and many other literary prizes.
From 1946 to 1950, he studied literature and political science at the Sorbonne. Also, Depestre frequents the French surrealist poets, foreign artists and the intellectuals of the movement of the Negritudewho gather around Alioune Diop and Présence Africaine.
As part of the promotion of poetry and in tribute to the fight of the poet René Depestre, Éditions Varella is launching a call for texts by organizing a poetry contest entitled: “Rene Depestre Poetry Competition”.
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Varella Editions propose as a theme Haiti, you will be reborn from your ashes and call for the creativity of Haitian poets. To participate, you must write an unpublished poem in French or Creole (which must not exceed 25 lines) and send it before the deadline of May 18, 2023 all forms allowed (verse, prose or free).
As part of this call for papers, the reward is a publication of the winner’s work. Twenty-five texts will be selected by a jury to appear in a collective collection.
What would be my “ideal” of literature?
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I like the literature of ideas. For me, literature is a way of defending oneself against injustice and denouncing lies.
My love of books was instilled in me by my father, who had his small library at home. Kid, I was intrigued by the cover of In the skin of a black person by John Howard Griffin, who sits in the small family library. Reading is an integral part of my life and my daily life. As a child, I had to spend hours in the school library, whether formal or for detention hours.
In fact, my tastes and my desires evolve according to my different experiences. I think that I confess that I have lived of Neruda was my first great literary discovery. In high school, I was really passionate about autobiographical novels and films. As a teenager, I was intrigued by stories belonging to the realist register. Since 2010 and until today, I have had three literary favorites: The Immortals the Makenzy Orcel The five letters by Georges Castera and Zoune at her Ninnaine by Justin Lherisson. I read recently the lover by Marguerite Duraswhich I really liked.
Books have the power to shape us by leaving their imprint on us for life. What do you think is the must-read book? Answer us in the comments and let’s discover together the magic of French-speaking literature!