Negritude and Literary Criticism: The History and Theory of Negro-African Literature in French [Hardcover]

Negro-African literature in French is one of a number of appellations most commonly used to describe a body of literary texts written in French by Africans and those of African descent from roughly 1920 onward. Discussing the numerous other terms that have been used to designate the same body of texts (Colonial literature, Black literature, literature of Negritude), Jack explores the complex relationship between how literatures are named and how they are evaluated. The first thorough study of the history and criticism of Negro-African literature in French, this work gives an account of the development of a critical discourse and its influence on primary texts.BELINDA ELIZABETH JACK is Lecturer in French at Christ Church, University of Oxford. She has been appointed British Academy Post-doctoral Fellow at the European Humanities Research Centre in Oxford. She is the author ofAn Introduction to Francophone Literatures.

Introduction
Discourses Surrounding French Texts about Africa and Africans: The Ubiquity of Les Sciences Coloniales
Critics of the African Diaspora and Their Contribution to Debates in Paris
Negritude and Literary Criticism
Nationalisms and Literary Criticism: The Nature of Literary Engagement
Seminal Studies: Historiography and Criticism
The Wider Debate
Conclusion
Bibliography