Dominic Thomas

Intertextuality, Plagiarism, and Recycling in Ousmane Sembene's Le docker noir (Black Docker)

Colonialism and the accompanying violence of Western language literacy that was indissociable from the pedagogic mechanisms of the French imperial ambition left indelible marks on francophone literary production. The objective of this essay is provided by a consideration of Ousmane Sembenes 1956 novel, Le docker noir (Black Docker), and Richard Wrights 1940 novel, Native Son (Un enfant du pays), within a transcolonial and transnational framework that also explores connections with a range of other texts generated by African, African American, Caribbean, and European authors. This case study of Sembenes novel serves to highlight a different facet of the question of textual ownership by investigating how an African and African American critical apparatus can take the debate in a new direction by demonstrating how the mediation between Sembene and Wright needs to be more aggressively pursued in order to complicate terms such as intertextuality, plagiarism, and recycling.

Nation-Building, Propaganda, and Literature in Francophone Africa

Preliminary Table of Contents: Preface and Acknowledgments Note on Translations List of Abbreviations and Acronyms 1. Introduction: Engineering History and Engineering Literature 2. Official Writers: The Engineers of the Congolese Soul 3. Sony Labou Tansi: Commitment, Oppositionality and Resistance 4. Henri Lopes: Collaboration, Confession and Testimony 5. Emmanuel Dongala: History, Memory and Reconciliation 6. National Conferences and Media Decentralization in Francophone Africa Notes Bibliography Index