Francophone African Women Writers: Destroying the Emptiness of Silence

Irène Assiba d'Almeida

University Press of Florida

<p>Over the years the conveners of the African Literature Association (ALA) annual Conference have organized their conference s discussions around imaginative and relevant themes which engage the directions of contemporary literary studies. The theme of the 2010 Conference, Eco-Imagination: African and Diasporan Literatures and Sustainability, follows this excellent tradition. If the world s environmental concerns are still mainly a subject for scientists, economists and politicians, there is a growing sense that the Humanities should also address these concerns. Indeed, it should be the work of writers and artists to make sure that ecological opportunities and challenges are known, and to move people to act on that knowledge. The volume opens with two Keynote addresses. The first was delivered by Ivoirienne poet, novelist, and essayist Tanella Boni, whose extensive and rich work still needs to be translated into English. In La pollution du monde et le silence des écrivains africains, ( The Polluting of the World and the Silence of African Writers ), Boni offers a serious challenge, a call for a new sphere of engagement by African writers, an attention to ecological problems that must not be ignored. The second Keynote address, A la source de l arbre, l alternative sculptée: réflexions sur l art et la durabilité écologique ( At the Source of the Tree, the Sculpted Alternative: Reflections on Art and Sustainability ) is by Jean-Gilles Quenum, who defines himself as an Afro-European artist. A sculptor who often works with wood, Quenum recognizes acutely the need for conservation, and that awareness has led him to develop an aesthetics of recycling, re-using the material of his sculptures to create different forms. The majority of the papers and panels in the 2010 convention were concerned with ecology, sustainability, pollution, and how contemporary literary studies address these issues. This volume includes eighteen essays, representative of the conference s thematic scope and participants varying interests. Using the theoretical frame of eco-criticism, eco-poetry and eco-feminism, the essays in English or French have been divided into three general categories on the basis of their subject matter and geographical focus. Part One, titled The African Environment: Eco-criticism on the Continent groups essays that examine questions of environmental awareness, degradation of the relationship between nature and human beings, and the impact of global power structures on the environment. The second section, The World s Environment: Eco-criticism in the Diaspora further explores questions of environmental crisis and sustainability as they relate to gender, race, class, consumerism and tourism. The last section, Other Perspectives: From Translation to Pedagogy investigates a variety of topics ranging from post/colonial discourse to evangelical translation.</p>

Eco-Imagination: African and Diasporan Literatures and Sustainability

Eds.

Lucie Viakinnou-Brinson and Thelma Pinto

Africa World Press, Inc.

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Books by Irène Assiba d'Almeida

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Francophone African Women Writers: Destroying the Emptiness of Silence

Eco-Imagination: African and Diasporan Literatures and Sustainability