Publication of the opening lecture by Pr Alain Mabanckou

Alain Mabanckou

Lettres noires : from darkness to light

" For centuries, Africa was seen, imagined and fantasized by Europeans as a savage, dark continent, the raw material for tales of adventure and exploration, tinged with exoticism, yet with only one voice: that of the colonizer. It wasn't until the middle of the ^20th century that literature written by and for Africans began to emerge. From negritude to "migritude", it is up to today's black writers to think and live their artistic identity in the full light of day. "

Mabanckou A., Lettres noires : des ténèbres à la lumière, Paris, Collège de France/Fayard, coll. " Leçons inaugurales du Collège de France ",^no. 263, 2016, 80 p.; digital edition: Collège de France, 2016, https://doi.org/10.4000/books.cdf.4413.

ISBN : 978-2-213-70079-3
Price: €10.20
Publication date : April 20, 2016

Alain Mabanckou is a novelist, poet and essayist. His works have been translated into some fifteen languages. His first novel, Bleu-blanc-rouge (1998), won him the Grand Prix littéraire d'Afrique. In 2006, he won the Prix Renaudot for Mémoires de porc-épic. That same year, the University of California (UCLA) appointed him Professor in the Department of French Literature and Francophone Studies. Appointed for the 2015-2016 academic year, he is the first writer to be invited to the annual Artistic creation chair at the Collège de France.