Contemporary French and Francophone Cultures

3 primary works

Childhood, Autobiography and the Francophone Caribbean

by Louise Hardwick

Published 4 April 2013

This book examines a major modern turn in Francophone Caribbean literature towards the recit d'enfance, or childhood memoir, and asks why this occurred post-1990, connecting texts to recent changes in public policy and education policy concerning the commemoration of slavery and colonialism both in France and at a global level (for example, the UNESCO project 'La Route de l'esclave', the 'loi Taubira' and the 'Comite pour la memoire de l'esclavage').

Combining approaches from Postcolonial Theory, Psychoanalysis, Trauma Theory and Gender Studies, and positing recognition as a central concept of postcolonial literature, it draws attention to a neglected body of recits d'enfance by contemporary bestselling, prize-winning Francophone Caribbean authors Patrick Chamoiseau, Maryse Conde, Gisele Pineau, Daniel Maximin, Raphael Confiant and Dany Laferriere, while also offering new readings of texts by Aime Cesaire, Frantz Fanon, Edouard Glissant, Joseph Zobel, Francoise Ega, Michele Lacrosil, Maurice Virassamy and Mayotte Capecia.

The study proposes an innovative methodological paradigm with which to read postcolonial childhoods in a comparative framework from areas as diverse as the Caribbean, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa and particularly the Haitian diaspora in North America.

Joseph Zobel

by Louise Hardwick

Published 27 March 2018

Joseph Zobel (1915-2006) is one of the best-known Francophone Caribbean authors, and is internationally recognised for his novel La Rue Cases-Negres (1950). Yet very little is known about his other novels, and most readings of La Rue Cases-Negres consider the text in isolation. Through a series of close readings of the author's six published novels, with supporting references drawn from his published short stories, poetry and diaries, Joseph Zobel: Negritude and the Novel generates new insights into Zobel's highly original decision to develop Negritude's project of affirming pride in black identity through the novel and social realism. The study establishes how, influenced by the American Harlem Renaissance movement, Zobel expands the scope of Negritude by introducing new themes and stylistic innovations which herald a new kind of social realist French Caribbean literature. These discoveries in turn challenge and alter the current understanding of Francophone Caribbean literature during the Negritude period, in addition to contributing to changes in the current understanding of Caribbean and American literature more broadly understood.

Creole Cinema: Memory Traces

by Louise Hardwick

Published 15 February 2025

Creole Cinema: Memory Traces is the first book written in English on Francophone Caribbean cinema. It establishes a postcolonial, Caribbean, and fundamentally Creole theoretical framework for the interpretation of works which the author defines as Creole cinema, through the lens of Patrick Chamoiseau’s concept of the Trace-mémoire. In so doing, it examines the remarkable multisensory forms of memory expression performed by Creole cinema, drawing on work on intercultural cinema and haptic visuality by Laura Marks, and on Hamid Naficy’s insights into accented cinema. Initially undertaking a general survey which provides the most comprehensive account of Francophone Caribbean cinema to date, the critical framework is then developed in a series of case-studies which analyse Biguine (2004) directed by Guy Deslauriers with a screenplay by Chamoiseau; Nord-Plage (2004) directed by José Hayot, again with Chamoiseau as author of the screenplay; Rue Cases-Nègres (1983, Sugar Cane Alley) directed by Euzhan Palcy; and Nèg maron (2005) directed by Jean-Claude Barny. Each case study establishes how the Trace-mémoire manifests in a complex haptic multisensory set of dynamics which can be discerned both in individual works and across a wider range of films considered, in order to access and retrieve – here with a particular emphasis on processes of creative intuition – subaltern and marginalised memories and histories. The study works in a consistently interdisciplinary manner across areas including Francophone Studies, Film Studies, Postcolonial Studies, World Cinema, and Black Studies, and represents a timely intervention on urgent debates around black representation in cinema.