| Chapter 1: | Introduction |
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La culture nationale est l’ensemble des efforts faits par un peuple sur le plan de la pensée pour décrire, justifier et chanter l’action à travers laquelle le peuple s’est constitué et s’est maintenu. La culture nationale dans les pays sous-développés doit donc se situer au centre même de la lutte de libération que mènent ces pays.9
(A national culture is the whole body of efforts made by a people in the sphere of thought to describe, justify, and praise the action through which that people has created itself and keeps itself in existence. A national culture in underdeveloped countries should therefore take its place at the very heart of the struggle for freedom, which these countries are carrying on.)
It is critical, however, to note that in Fanon’s view, this “combative” stage is the last of three phases that characterize the evolution of native writers’ literary works. The first phase, assimilation, is when native intellectuals literally imitated works of the colonizing intelligentsia. It occurred during colonial times and predates any of the widely known black literary movements. In her historical account of black literature, Lilyan Kesteloot also strongly argued that the style of this literature was modeled after classics such as Verlaine, Hugo, Shakespeare, Bernadin de Saint-Pierre, and others:
Littérature de parfaite correction stylistique qui servait de modèles dans les anthologies et dans les bibliothèques…et que l’on prêtait avec grand soin aux Noirs avides des mystères du savoir blanc.10
(A stylistically faultless literature that was used as model in anthologies and libraries…and that was carefully handed out to black people eager to learn of the mysteries of white wisdom.)
A few examples of such works are L’Empire du Mogho Naba (1932) by Din Delobson, Karim (1935) by Ousmane Socé Diop, and Doguicimi (1938) by Paul Hazoumé. The common characteristic of these writers was that