Africana Periodical Literature 
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| Title: | The Curse of the Sons or the Betrayal of the Fathers? Rethinking the Family in Contemporary Malian Literature |
| Author: | Sow, Alioune |
| Year: | 2002 |
| Periodical: | Mande Studies |
| Volume: | 4 |
| Pages: | 171-185 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Mali |
| Subjects: | family novels Literature, Mass Media and the Press |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/44093491 |
| Abstract: | Strong similarities can be observed in Moussa Konaté's 'Le prix de l'âme' (1981) and 'Fils du chaos' (1986), Mandé Alpha Diarra's 'La nièce de l'imam' (1994), Moussa Bissan's 'Un mariage de raison' (1996), and Amadou Sow's 'Les sacrifiés d'Alama' (1997). These five Malian novels were all published in a period of dramatic political activity, the transition to democracy in 1991, and were written by authors who also shared a similar 'literary experience'. They have all lived through the political transition from dictatorship to democracy; they are all based in Mali with no strong links with France, and for the most part their works are published in Bamako. This specific context of production is also complemented by another coincidence: all these narratives are concerned with and structured around one identical theme: the politics of the familiy. Is such emphasis on the depiction of the family accidental? The present paper argues that this focus on the politics of family becomes a significant component in the attempt by Malian writers to recentre the object of contest and to participate in the debate of national reconstruction. The family acts as a catalyst in the wider 'social observation', which still remains the main axis in Malian literature. Bibliogr., notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract] |
