asks, despite his convictions, that the spell be lifted. “L’Afrique a bien ses mystères” (Africa does have its mysteries), the narrator explains without offering a closing explanation of the cause of Kali’s predicament (Dongala 1982, 45). Dongala’s work deeply interrogates received wisdom regarding the state of postcolonial African contexts, going so far as to point out, in his short story “Une journée dans la vie d’Augustine Amaya” (A Day in the Life of Augustine Amaya), about a woman who struggles to survive as a vendor while regularly embarking on the arduous journey between Brazzaville and Kinshasa, that “Du temps des colons, il était facile d’aller à Kinshasa” (In colonial times, it was easy to go to Kinshasa) (56). The evocation of an easier life under colonialism does not imply nostalgia for French rule but rather an indictment of the state to which post‐independence political leaders have led their respective countries. Yet Dongala’s writing does not enter into programmatic political dialogue at any point. Instead it focuses on tensions and points of paradox between political ideology and the inherent messiness of subjective experience. Far from focusing solely on Africa, Dongala also casts his gaze on African American life in the United States, most notably in a story called “A Love Supreme,” inspired by the music of John Coltrane and nearly finishing on the salutary note of art’s ability to save the individual. Bringing a cold dose of political reality to this idealism, Dongala finishes the story, and indeed his collection of short stories, with the narrator learning of the shooting of a thirteen‐year‐old boy by a New York City policeman.
Perhaps most notable of Central African authors writing in French in the early postcolonial period is Sony Labou Tansi, whose deft use of language and genre allowed him to walk the line between satirizing abuses of power and falling foul of state authorities. In the preface to his novel La vie et demie (1979; Life and a Half, 2011), Labou Tansi adapts the figure of the African auteur engagé to his needs, writing, “A ceux qui cherchent un auteur engagé je propose un homme engageant” (To those who seek an engaged author, I offer an engaging man) (Labou Tansi 1979, 9; 2011, 3). This new authorial figure, as illustrated by the novel, reflects a fluid, borderless approach to language and genre that owes as much to the magical realism of Gabriel García Márquez as to the notion of political engagement. The genre‐switching novel begins with a gruesome act of dictatorial violence, then unravels through an endless succession of attempts at armed resistance that culminate in an explosive ending worthy of a science fiction novel. Throughout, Labou Tansi breaks with lexical and syntactical conventions of the French language, rendering it new in order to suit his needs at the convergence of the engaged, the poetic, and the grotesque. Calling his novel a fable, Labou Tansi openly criticizes the authority seized by postcolonial dictatorships. However, the use of literary excess helps the author to maintain a slim measure of plausible deniability. Although his work evokes visceral reactions from readers, as characters are torn limb from limb or forced into acts of anthropophagy, throughout, Labou Tansi creates a disconnect between words and meaning, literature and genre. The author informs us that he must write with “chairs‐mots‐de‐passe” (flesh passwords) (1979, 9; 2011, 3). As Thomas (2002) argues, this is a means for this Congolese writer to step within the French language and wield it as a weapon, perhaps not frontally attacking dictatorship, but rather stepping within its repressive logic so as to exaggerate it ad absurdum and unravel it from within.
In Labou Tansi’s play La parenthèse de sang (Parentheses of Blood, 1981), the playwright employs a wide range of literary and dramaturgical influences, where customs of Kongo theatrical tradition interact with characters and stage tropes borrowed from Shakespeare (especially in the character of the Fool), theater of the absurd (with the repeated mention of a central character who never appears on stage, recalling Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot), or French existentialism (in the parallels between this and Jean‐Paul Sartre’s play No Exit). The play is equally relevant to mythical figures of the African postcolonial struggle, as clownish military figures massacre each other one by one in futile pursuit of a revolutionary leader Libertashio, who is said to be dead but whose specter nonetheless haunts the authoritarian regime in place. The character is a veiled reference to Patrice Lumumba, the first elected Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the work of symbolic erasure that followed his assassination in 1961. Yet against a backdrop of extreme violence, an indomitable ludic aspect persists within the characters’ interactions, tripping up authoritative power grabs at every turn. This playfulness comes through in the poetic license Labou Tansi takes with French grammar and syntax, as well as in his characters’ fumbling with certain key words, like the soldier who comically struggles to get out the French word for the ballot box (“urnes”), only managing variations on the word “urine” (“aux urines … aux urinaux”) (Labou Tansi 1993, 21). We also find a playful dynamic in the staging of role‐play, as soldiers take turns donning the grade of sergeant each time one of theirs is executed on the spot for declaring that Libertashio is dead, which of course he is. This linguistic and theatrical playfulness seeks to undermine authoritarian repression through grotesque satire.
It is worth noting that Labou Tansi’s theatrical work arrived in the wake of an innovative, French‐sponsored experiment in Francophone African writing for the stage. In 1967, the French radio station Radio France Internationale (RFI) launched its Concours Théâtral Interafricain, a contest that encouraged African authors to send in stage scripts for consideration. A selection of these would be performed on air and the contest winner for best play earned a full production at the prestigious Avignon Theater Festival in France. The initiative, and many others like it, was not without its critics. Undergirding the many cultural projects and collaborations between France and Africa at the time was a strategic attempt by the French government to maintain its influence in the former colonies of the region through cultural diplomacy. This form of soft power was implemented under the umbrella of France’s Action Culturelle, which included the upkeep and promotion of the many French cultural centers established in the now former colonies. Such cultural initiatives took place in tandem with more direct, though clandestine, maneuvering to maintain economic dominance in the resource‐rich countries of the region.5 RFI’s radio play competition was one of many aspects of a broader attempt to promote a rayonnement culturel, or cultural “radiation,” as if from the sun, in what critics later considered an updated version of the colonial civilizing mission. Nonetheless, the annual radio competition also facilitated a creative explosion in African writing for the stage, receiving multiple submissions annually and helping to launch the careers of a new generation of playwrights from throughout the continent. Authors like Labou Tansi, who took first prize in 1977 with his play Je soussigné cardiaque, were able to use the distinctive format of the radio play to experiment with theatrical form, and also to examine the political and social realities of life within the rising dictatorships then taking hold in some African countries.
The case of the Concours théâtral interafricain illustrates how African authors may use the framework of French cultural and linguistic influence to explore with form in works that, though indeed Francophone in their indebtedness to the métropole for distribution, nonetheless offer something decidedly new. Theater proves a fruitful avenue of creative research for writers and directors who write in French but use the stage to revise European notions of performance, theater, and ritual. Particularly illuminating in this regard is the work of Cameroonian playwright and author Werewere Liking, whose stage work cannot be described as works of drama in the conventional sense but rather as scripted stagings that blur the boundary between theater and ritual. In her play La Puissance de Um (The Power of Um, 1979), Liking places on stage a funerary rite of her native Bassa culture, writing direct audience participation into what is designed to serve as an effective, transformative experience for performers and spectators. This approach is the fruit of a Francophone collaboration of a different kind, since Liking developed her technique in collaboration with French researcher Marie‐José Hourantier, who had published scholarly work on the practice of what she called ritual‐theater (Hourantier 1984). Following their collaboration, Liking created, in 1985, a cultural center in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, called the Ki‐Yi M’Bock village. Her example posits a fruitful counter‐model to the French cultural centers found throughout Africa, while also remaining open to collaboration with French cultural influence
