Situating francophone literature

Between postcolonial and global

Abstract

Currently, there are numerous linguistic and literary phenomena that go beyond the geographical or national space to manifest themselves on a global scale. This is the case of the Francophonie, a culturally heterogeneous international group, with a problematic centrality, difficult to define, historically linked to processes of colonization and post-colonialism, which demands a supranational vision for its study. Already at the beginning of the 20th century, the phenomenon of Negritude demonstrated that French-speaking letters constitute a transnational manifestation impossible to approach with regionalist criteria disregarding the historical and linguistic processes involved. The contact of cultures and languages typical of these hybrid literatures makes their understanding difficult and calls for processes of legitimization, canonization and prestige that highlight their resistance against marginality. Lately, worldwide recognition through important prizes awarded to non-European writers makes it possible to hope that French-speaking production will manage to escape the periphery and the suspicion of ancillarity to position itself in the place of autonomy and quality it deserves.