Negritude and Literary Criticism: The History and Theory of Negro-African Literature in French

(Hardback)

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"Negro-African" literature in French is one of a number of appellations most commonly used to describe a body of literary texts written in French by Africans and those of African descent from roughly 1920 onward. Discussing the numerous other terms that have been used to designate the same body of texts ("Colonial" literature, "Black" literature, "literature of Negritude"), Jack explores the complex relationship between how literatures are named and how they are evaluated. This work gives an account of the development of a critical discourse and its influence on primary texts.

Reviews

.,."this is an extremely ambitious work, one that is well documented and rich in observations....the study is extremely valuable and offers an interesting, comprehensive orientation of many of the primary texts in the discipline with special consideration for some key theoretical issues, especially the evolving nature of the concept of Negritude."-Research in African Literatures
...this is an extremely ambitious work, one that is well documented and rich in observations....the study is extremely valuable and offers an interesting, comprehensive orientation of many of the primary texts in the discipline with special consideration for some key theoretical issues, especially the evolving nature of the concept of Negritude.-Research in African Literatures
Jack's book is a useful survey for anyone interested in the development not just of French-African literature, but of African literature or postcolonial literature in general, serving to show the long-standing nature of contemporary debates such as the problematic of writing in the language of the former colonizer. By historicizing the term Negritude and placing it within wider textual and cultural contexts, Jack's book serves as a corrective to the less generative and more typical approach of attempting to artificially fix the term in Paris in the 1930's.-Journal of Third World Studies
Jack's well-researched and well-written book offers a probing historical analysis of the disparate secondary sources on the thematic development and characteristics of 'Negro-African' literature. The author offers a balanced view and raises legitimate questions about the validity of a homogrnous interpretation of Francophone black culture and nationalism. She examines thoroughly the conflicts and contradictions of the historiography and criticism that situate Negro African literature within a defined context... recommended for senior scholars and graduate students.-Choice
..."this is an extremely ambitious work, one that is well documented and rich in observations....the study is extremely valuable and offers an interesting, comprehensive orientation of many of the primary texts in the discipline with special consideration for some key theoretical issues, especially the evolving nature of the concept of Negritude."-Research in African Literatures
"Jack's well-researched and well-written book offers a probing historical analysis of the disparate secondary sources on the thematic development and characteristics of 'Negro-African' literature. The author offers a balanced view and raises legitimate questions about the validity of a homogrnous interpretation of Francophone black culture and nationalism. She examines thoroughly the conflicts and contradictions of the historiography and criticism that situate Negro African literature within a defined context... recommended for senior scholars and graduate students."-Choice
"Jack's book is a useful survey for anyone interested in the development not just of French-African literature, but of African literature or postcolonial literature in general, serving to show the long-standing nature of contemporary debates such as the problematic of writing in the language of the former colonizer. By historicizing the term Negritude and placing it within wider textual and cultural contexts, Jack's book serves as a corrective to the less generative and more typical approach of attempting to artificially fix the term in Paris in the 1930's."-Journal of Third World Studies

Author Bio

BELINDA ELIZABETH JACK is Lecturer in French at Christ Church, University of Oxford. She has been appointed British Academy Post-doctoral Fellow at the European Humanities Research Centre in Oxford. She is the author of An Introduction to Francophone Literatures.