The language of Molière is also the language of Mohammed, Mamadou and Ming.
- From: "Chim" <ChimS1@xxxxxxx>
- Date: 4 Jun 2006 08:57:29 -0700
In the company of writers
Rajesh Sharma
May 31, 2006
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This year when the Paris Book Fair decided to honour and highlight
Francophone literature instead of centring the Fair around one guest
country, no-one imagined the controversy that would be generated. As
the name indicates even to the uninitiated, Francophone literature is
quite clearly literature written in the French language. The theme was
therefore Francophonie (approximated as Francophony in English) and 40
writers were invited from countries as far apart as Algeria and
Cambodia, but also from the much nearer Greece and Belgium. However,
not a single French writer from France was included.
The absence of French writing at the Fair had much to do with a very
widespread interpretation of the term Francophone literature as
covering writing in French by the non-French. This implicit definition
touched a raw nerve. 'Isn't France Francophone?', asked one
delegate ironically evoking what is a sensitive topic at the best of
times. The first salvo was fired by Amin Maalouf, the Paris based
Franco-Lebanese writer-journalist who raised his voice against this
appellation.
After all, who is a Francophone writer? It is a person who writes in
French. This is obvious but yet it is true only in theory. For the
French, the term Francophone writers should mean us (the French
included), says Maalouf, but it actually means 'them', 'the
others', 'the foreigners', the ones from the former colonies.
Yet, this was far from the intention of the founding fathers of
Francophony. Though the word Francophonie is hardly new, as it was
coined as far back as 1880 to emphasise the linguistic factor in French
colonial expansion, in its modern day avatar it assumed new dimensions.
It was Léopold Sédar Senghor, writer-statesman who gave it a new
meaning and proposed 'a spiritual community of nations that use
French'. However, Francophonie remains a loaded expression even if
the Organisation Internationale de la francophonie (OIF), an
international organisation of wholly and partially French-speaking
countries, modelled to some extent on the Commonwealth has been seeking
to break out of the mould of the promotion of the French language and
essaying a global role in the field of cultural diversity, promotion of
democracy and human rights. This organisation of 63 member-countries,
currently headed by Abdou Diouf, former President of Senegal, puts the
figure of French speakers in the world at 175 million. But despite all
this, France still has a tendency to treat it as the remnants of its
colonial empire because the whole network is intricately linked to the
relations France maintains with French-speaking communities all around
the world who are for the most part its former colonies.
This condescending attitude still tinted with shades of colonialism
that the word Francophony expresses worked up several writers and
journalists. The compartmentalisation of writing into French literature
and literature written by foreigners in French, the distinction between
French literature that has emerged from the centre and writing in
French that has been thrown up by the fringes or the periphery, was
tantamount to insidious apartheid, according to one journalist.
There is the French language of France which is the norm, the authentic
means of expression and the other French which offers the unexpected
and the exotic and is the voice of the Francophone writer. It goes
without saying that there are no precise criteria when it comes to
defining a Francophone writer. Writers from the North, who write in
French, are quickly assimilated with French writers even if they are of
foreign origin, but others from the South do not share the same
privilege. Milan Kundera, the Franco-Czech writer, who has been living
in France for the last 30 years, started writing directly in French
when, to his horror, he discovered that the translator of his novel The
Joke had virtually rewritten his novel embellishing his style. And
worse was still to come when he realised that the Argentinean edition
was based on the French re-writing of his novel. Or, to go back in
time, no one has ever called Guillaume Apollinaire, the foremost French
poet of the 20th century, a Francophone poet simply because he was born
in Italy to a Polish Mother.
Then there is the reluctance to consider French writers Francophone
authors as well as the fact that no space is allotted to Francophone
writers in manuals and treatises on French literature. A host of
foreign writers based in France, voluntarily or in exile and who have
become naturalised French citizens, have to deal with this ambivalence.
Until they are classified as French writers, their citizenship is void
of meaning, their belonging to France undermined by the label
'Francophone'.
Maalouf calls for the use of the term 'French language writers'
which would put an end to this segregation and cover all writing in
French whether produced by Blacks or Whites, whether it comes from
Montreal, Dakar, Paris, Brazzaville or Phnom Penh. To do this would
efface the writer's country of origin, his nationality, the colour of
his skin and let his work do the talking. Just as there is no
distinction made between English literature and Anglophone writing,
there would be no separation of French and Francophone literatures but
only French language literatures.
However, what is not in doubt and remains uncontested by one and all is
the fact that Francophone writing has greatly enriched the French
language. Testimony to this is the fact that in the last three decades,
the Goncourt prize, the most prestigious French literary award has been
given to many a Francophone writer. Among the laureates figure: Amin
Maalouf himself; Moroccan novelist Tahar Ben Jelloun, undoubtedly the
most prolific and best-known North African writer based in France;
Andreï Makine whose life has become part of literary legend. Having
arrived from Siberia, he had to make a corner of the Père Lachaise
cemetery his home. Since nobody believed he could write in French, he
lied saying that his book was translated from Russian. His fourth book,
Dreams of My Russian Summers won two top literary awards simultaneously
and went on to become a phenomenal bestseller.
Today, French fiction is on the decline and critics attribute it to the
experimental style of the Nouveau Roman, where plot and character were
considered inferior to meticulous physical description. The period of
Camus, Sartre or Gide is no more, but the writer from Africa or from
the French Caribbean with his own universe, his own very specific
mythology, not to omit the refreshingly new lexicon and the innovative
style of writing has revitalised the language. Patrick Chamoiseau is
one such writer. From the same part of the world as Aimé Césaire and
Franz Fanon, though far less known, Chamoiseau made a mark with Texaco,
a magical, mythical 150-year-old story of his native Martinique and its
Creole language and culture. A new linguistic style, a hybrid language
that remains accessible and at the same time contains the values of his
Creole mother tongue that he rediscovers. Works in French today,
whether from the former colonies or simply by people who have migrated
and settled in France for political reasons or otherwise, are expressed
in a multitude of new, rich and innovative voices.
To encourage this osmosis between French language literatures requires
the tearing down of out-dated colonial coloured distinctions. And most
of all it requires the recognition that the language of Molière, to
use an image coined by Raphaël Confiant, is also the language of
Mohammed, Mamadou and Ming.
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