World Literature Anthologies in French and African Literatures: Some Reflections on Robert Lebel's Le Livre du pays noir. Anthologie de la littérature africaine (1927)
The elaboration of a world anthology of African literatures represents, in my opinion, an opportune moment to revisit African literary history in order to refocus and rethink it in its relations with the framework in which it was constituted on the African continent. Roland Lebel's anthology Le Livre du pays noir (1927), subsequently republished in Roger Little's collection (L'Harmattan, Autrement mêmes) represents, in this respect, a milestone. For, beyond its colonial bias, it points to the complexity of the African canon formed at the intersection of extra-national, even transnational, literary practices. The essay proceeds in a three-step study. It opens with a cross-reading of colonization and globalization, crucial turning points in literary denationalization; then, based on a reading of a series of colonial and postcolonial anthologies, it identifies the changes and transformations in the idea of African literature; and finally, it closes with an investigation of what literary critics say about the relationship between these two literary poles. The importance of taking into account the historical process of the elaboration of world literature when conceiving a world anthologization of African literatures will thus be understood.