Childhood, Autobiography and the Francophone Caribbean

This book examines a major modern turn in Francophone Caribbean literature towards the recit d'enfance, or childhood memoir, and asks why this occurred post-1990, connecting texts to recent changes in public policy and education policy concerning the commemoration of slavery and colonialism both in France and at a global level (for example, the UNESCO project 'La Route de l'esclave', the 'loi Taubira' and the 'Comite pour la memoire de l'esclavage'). Combining approaches from Postcolonial Theory, Psychoanalysis, Trauma Theory and Gender Studies, and positing recognition as a central concept of postcolonial literature, it draws attention to a neglected body of recits d'enfance by contemporary bestselling, prize-winning Francophone Caribbean authors Patrick Chamoiseau, Maryse Conde, Gisele Pineau, Daniel Maximin, Raphael Confiant and Dany Laferriere, while also offering new readings of texts by Aime Cesaire, Frantz Fanon, Edouard Glissant, Joseph Zobel, Francoise Ega, Michele Lacrosil, Maurice Virassamy and Mayotte Capecia. The study proposes an innovative methodological paradigm with which to read postcolonial childhoods in a comparative framework from areas as diverse as the Caribbean, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa and particularly the Haitian diaspora in North America.