Roman et oralité.

N. Martin-Granel — Novels and Oral Traditions, A Review. For literary critics constantly preoccupied with the quest for sources, the only "authentic" African writer is the one who writes what the ancestors dic-tate. Barely a caricature, this myth has, in Eileen Julien's iconoclastic book African Novels and the Question of Orality, been deconstructed down to its evolution-ary or primitivist assumptions. A close reading of a few famous novels on the basis of their "oral intertext" shows that the African novelist is no more naive than other novelists. He is, indeed, the author of his text; he adapts, transposes, manipulates oral genres, as well as any informed critic can do. Although genres may be invented through writing, why would they not also be through reading?Martin-Granel Nicolas. Roman et oralité.. In: Cahiers d'études africaines, vol. 33, n°132, 1993. pp. 659-664