Toward the Decolonization of the Europhone African Novel
is a treatise on the problematics of language choice in Europhone African literature. Vakunta's research is rooted in the notion that the postcolonial African fiction writer is at a crossroads of languages, groping for linguistic re-orientation. Using the prose of fiction of Patrice Nganang, Ahmadou Kourouma, Mercedes Fouda, Nazi Boni, and Gabriel K. Fonkou as corpus, he contends that postcolonial African fiction is an offshoot of a linguistic tinkering process that enables writers to tinker with the language of the ex-colonizer in a deliberate attempt to divest indigenous writing of its hegemonic vestiges.
Peter Wuteh Vakunta is Professor of French Literature and Francophone Studies at the United States Department of Defense Language Institute (DLIFLC) in Monterey-California.