Theories of Africans: Francophone Literature and Anthropology in Africa (Black Literature and Culture Series)

"Can a Western critic slip out from under the distorting effects of Western academic language and accurately describe an object such as African literature?" Introduction: Reading Through Western Eyes -- Ethnicity And Ethics -- Orality Through Literacy: Mande Verbal Art After The Letter -- L'enfant Noir, Totemism, And Suspended Animism -- Les Soleils Des Independances And Francophone Dialogue -- Senegalese Women Writers, Silence, And Letters: Before The Canon's Roar -- Conclusion. Christopher L. Miller. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 299-321) And Index. "Situating literature and anthropology in mutual interrogation, Miller's...book actually performs what so many of us only call for. Nowhere have all the crucial issues been brought together with the sort of critical sophistication it displays." Henry Louis Gates, Jr. ." . . a superb cross-disciplinary analysis." Y. Mudimbe" At the moment when this study was first conceived, American literary criticism was beginning to open its doors once again to the outside world.