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Chaos Énonciatif Du Discours Préfaciel Dans Le Roman Africain, Justin Bisanswa

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

The text examines the status and the role of “prefacial” discourse in the contemporary African novel (Henri Lopes, Valentin Mudimbe and Sony Labou Tansi). While up until recently the preface served to legitimize the text, introducing its author and allowing him to occupy a position, since the 1980s, the para-text (in this case a warning), assumed by the authors themselves, renders itself opaque, becoming a poetic issue and presenting a reflection of the enunciative device, repeatedly putting forward the idea of writing as constant prodding, dread and denial. This questioning, in its own way, defines a grouping of discursive strategies …