Arts and Humanities Commons^™

La Carte D’Identité De Jean-Marie Adiaffi Ou La Quête Identitaire À Travers La Symbolique De L’Initiation Allégorique, Theodore Akohoue

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

Since the earliest contact between Sub-Saharan Africans and Europeans, European literature tends to erase African history and civilization. Later, after an unsuccessful erasure, colonial literature denigrates it as primitive. Using the “identity card” as a motif in his novel, Jean-Marie Adiaffi exposes the defects of European colonization in its African colonies. Through an approach of allegorical initiation symbolism, Addiaffi revalorizes his culture, tradition, and identity all denied by colonial rule.