The Portable Ahmadou Kourouma

Short title For many years since the foundation of Negritude, Francophone African novelists have tried their best to emulate French authors by adjusting African culture and language to French. The appearance of Ahmadou Kourouma on the literary scene in 1968 brought a dramatic shift in the relations between French and African languages.Kourouma no longer seeks to copy his predecessors but rather to inscribe Malinke in post colonial literature. This book presents an argument for the position that Kourouma s novels are two-level subversion that develops through form and content. Kourouma proceeds from abrogation to appropriation to establish Malinke as a supplement to French. The quest for literary identity is resolved because post colonial African literature must reflect current linguistic changes. The conclusions that the book draws should help further the ongoing debate on the nature of Francophone literature in particular and African literature in general. It is my hope that University students, professors, scholars, and everyone who is interested in African literature will find this book useful to advance the exchange of ideas on the state of African literature.