Polyphonie et identité du roman africain dit de la rupture. Discours paternaliste et hétérogénéité constitutive de quatre romans de Bolya Baenga, Calixthe Beyala et Ahmadou Kourouma

This dissertation attempts a discourse analysis of four African post-colonial novels pertaining to what has been named “roman de la rupture”, which refers to novels that have evolved from the sixties till date and depict Africa as a world of violence, madness and lust. According to many critics, this literature has proved to be bold, realistic and independent. Can a literary text be independent and free from any contextual constraints? This work aims at challenging such an approach that may regard “rupture novels” as autonomous and free. It argues that rupture novels actually reformulate or rephrase an existing discourse that shapes the context of the novel. The said discourse depicts Africa as the country of childhood. As a matter of consequence the rupture novel sound dialogic, expressing voices from a well known standpoint. To demonstrate the polyphony of these novels, the present dissertation is backed up by French “énonciation” theories and based on Michel Foucault’s (1969) concept of discursive formation. In other words, rupture novel reformulate a discursive formation (Foucault). In the final analysis, this study attempts to demonstrate that the so called independence of post-independence African literature is somehow questionable