Out of Time: Decolonization and the Future of World Literature

Abstract

This epilogue restages the book’s central arguments on the language question, translation, and literary comparison through a reading of Aimé Césaire’s 1966 play Une saison au Congo[A Season in the Congo] and its recent Wolof translation by Boubacar Boris Diop. The focus is on the nature of a separation between audience and address in Césaire’s play and on how this nature changes across the work’s different versions and circumstances. Through this reading, the epilogue models what a comparative method attuned to the variability of literature might resemble.This in turn sets the stage for a conclusion that reflects on the challenge decolonization continues to pose to world literature.