“The Song of the Migrating Bird”: For a World Literature in French

On 16 March 2007, the French daily newspaper Le monde published a manifesto entitled “Pour une ‘littérature-monde’ en français” [Manifesto for a World Literature in French]. Alain Mabanckou has been an outspoken member of the group of 44 authors who signed the Manifesto for a World Literature in French. His writings have addressed the ambiguous reactions to these debates because of the political overtones and French colonial history, but also because the exclusive understanding of literary creation in French has been brought into question, as indeed has the place of francophone literature in the broader corpus of works of French expression. In this article, Mabanckou explores the fundamental cultural and political questions that have informed this debate, asking what those who share the French language contribute to the world, and what challenges arise from having to question one's position through this tool that is the French language.