Indigenization of Language in the African Francophone Novel: A New Literary Canon discusses the
question of indigenization in the African Francophone novel. Analyzing the prose narratives of
Nazi Boni Ahmadou Kourouma and Patrice Nganang this book contends that African literature
written in European languages is primarily a creative translation process. Recourse to European
languages as a medium of expressing African imagination worldview and cultures in fictional
writing poses problems of intelligibility. Developed to express and reflect Western worldviews
and sensibilities European languages are employed by African writers to convey messages that
seem to be at variance with European imagination. These writers find themselves writing in
languages they wish to subvert through the technique of literary indigenization. The
significance of this study resides in its raising awareness to the hurdles that literary
creativity in a polyglossic context may present to readers and translators. This book provides
answers to intriguing questions centering on the problematic of translation in contemporary
African literature. It is a contribution to current research aimed at unraveling the conundrum
surrounding the language question in African Europhone fiction particularly the cultural
functions of translation in literature. Potential translation problems have to be addressed in
order to make African literature written in European languages intelligible to global
readership. With the advent of globalization transcultural communication has become an
activity of enormous importance to the international community. It is a subject of great
interest to translators linguists language instructors and literary theorists.
