WMU French professor Vivan Steemers publishes new book

Dr. Vivan Steemers, associate professor and advisor of French in the Department of World Languages and Literatures at Western Michigan University, recently published a new book. “Le (néo)colonialisme littéraire: Quatre romans africains face à l’institution littéraire parisienne (1950-1970)” (“Literary (Neo)Colonialism: The Reception of Four African Novels by the Paris Literary Establishment [1950-1970]”), examines the reception of four sub-Saharan novels of French expression in metropolitan France during the two decades preceding and following the independence of former French colonies in West Africa.

About the book

Written by Vivan Steemers and published by the Paris Literary Establishment, “Le (néo)colonialisme littéraire: Quatre romans africains face à l’institution littéraire parisienne (1950-1970)” (“Literary (Neo)Colonialism: The Reception of Four African Novels by the Paris Literary Establishment [1950-1970]”), examines the reception of four sub-Saharan novels of French expression in metropolitan France during the two decades preceding and following the independence of former French colonies in West Africa.

If it is generally acknowledged that authors depend for the publication of their work on the literary establishment—publishers, critics, committees on literary prizes and sometimes government departments—the case of African Francophone novelists is all the more critical. Expressing themselves in the language of the (former) colonizer and bereft of a “local” publishing infrastructure and substantial readership, these writers are left at the tender mercies of the Paris literary establishment. Whereas in the 1950s the Parisian publishing houses and the press were highly politicized and receptive to African literature—each according to their ideology—for almost a decade after independence of the former French colonies these “authorities of power” were virtually oblivious to the literature of their former African colonies. This study is the first of its kind to focus on the discourse of the publishing houses and the reviewers of the first editions of African Francophone novels.