The concept of the author has changed over time, along with the forms of media that have been used to circulate texts. In my dissertation, I examine assumptions about writers with roots on the African continent by looking at representations of their status and function as authors as they appear in fiction and in the public sphere. I explore the changes in both the academy's and the public's perceptions of literature in French, and examine how these perceptions are related to current understandings of migration, transnationalism, and "legitimate" cultural production. The generation of writers working after independence from European colonialism in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s re-appropriated language and forms, resisting political and cultural domination. Decades later, can it be said that francophone writers today are as much a part of the literary landscape in French as any other author? I study the writings and self-presentation of five prominent authors writing in French today: Calixthe Beyala (Cameroon), Fatou Diome (Senegal), Bessora (Gabon/Switzerland), Alain Mabanckou (Congo), and Léonora Miano (Cameroon). Through their public performances as well as in their published work, these five writers adapt the repertoire for the writer labeled as "African" or "immigrant" in their own ways. They may play into or play up some of these prescribed roles, but in so doing they highlight the apparatus that structures the publishing industry, including the problematic vestiges of colonialism that remain in place there. Recent theories of the posture de l'écrivain (posturing of the writer) have not yet been fully applied to writers outside the Franco-French, Parisian-centered literary field. I examine the implications of considering the performance of the authorial persona when applied to works by French-speaking authors with origins outside this hyper-centralized industry. My corpus includes their written works, their presence in both traditional and digital media, and their appearances in person at literary events. Focusing on their self-presentation in written and embodied performances enables a more complete grasp of specific ways the literary field is configured for francophone writers, and the differences that remain: in the roles imposed upon them, and in their own authorial aesthetic.

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From all cultures of people arises a worldview that is utilized in preserving societal order and cultural cohesiveness. When such worldview is distorted by a calamity such as enslavement, the victims of that calamity are left marginal within the worldview of the oppressive power. From the European Enslavement of Africans, or to use Marimba Ani’s term, the Maafa, arose the notion of European or White Supremacy. Such a notion, though emphatically false, has left many Africans in the Americas in a psychological state colloquially termed as “mental slavery”. The culprit that produced this oppressive condition is Eurocentricity and its utilization of the social theory white supremacy, which has maturated from theory into a paradigm for systemic racism. Often among African Americans there exists a profound sense of dislocation with fragmentary ideas of the correct path towards liberation and relocation. This has engendered the need for a paradigm to be utilized in relocating Africans back to their cultural center. To be sure, many Africans on the continent have not themselves sought value in returning to African ways of knowing. This is however also a product of white supremacy as European colonialism established such atmosphere on the African continent. Colonization and enslavement have impacted major aspects of African cultural and social relations. Much of the motif and ethos of Africa remained within the landscape and language. However, the fact that the challenge of decolonization even for the continental African is still quite daunting only further highlights the struggles of the descendants of the enslaved living in the Americas. The removal from geographic location and the near-destruction of indigenous language levied a heavy breach in defense against total acculturation. Despite this, among the African Americans, African culture exists though languishes under the pressures of white supremacy. A primary reason for such deterioration is the fact that, because of the effects of self-knowledge distortion brought on by the era of enslavement, many African Americans do not realize the African paradigms from which phenomena in African American cultures derive. Furthermore, the lack of a nationalistic culture impedes the collective ability to hold such phenomena sacred and preserve it for the sake of posterity. Today, despite the extant African culture, African Americans largely operate from European paradigms, as America itself is a European or “Western” project. The need for a paradigm shift in African-American cultural dynamics has been the call of many, however is perhaps best illuminated by Dr. Maulana Karenga when he states that we have a “popular culture” and not a nationalistic one. Black nationalism has been presented to Black People for over a century however it has varied greatly between different ideological camps. The variation and many conflictions of these different ideologies perhaps helped the stagnation of the Black Nationalist movement itself. An Afrocentric investigation into African paradigms and the Black Nationalist movements should yield results beneficial to African people living in the Americas. / African American Studies

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Thesis (doctoral)--Universität, Mainz, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 277-288).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1992. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [284]-294).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Michigan State University. Dept. of English, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Aug. 19, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (p. 189-196). Also issued in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2009. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed July 21, 2009). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 234-252).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Santa Cruz, 1992. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 141-145).