The “Francophone” Fermata

Abstract

Chapter 6 focuses on the widespread reluctance among worldwide women writers to accept the word “Francophone” to describe their lives and work. For many, this disinclination is due to their understanding that this term is frequently employed in order to set their work apart as separate from and implicitly inferior to writing by French authors from France. Some admit that the classification is useful in certain settings, but most are quick to deny its pertinence to the French literary scene. An examination of bookstore displays and literary prizes reveals that narrow definitions of what constitutes “French literature” and a tendency to hastily classify authors as “Francophone” can lead to forms of exclusivity with deleterious effects. A consequential number of women signed a manifesto arguing for abolishing the ambiguous application of the descriptor “Francophone” in favor of the adoption of the much broader, more encompassing phrase “world-literature in French.” Two months after the publication of this document in the French newspaper Le Monde on March 16, 2007, an accompanying collective book volume came out, featuring chapters by a relatively high percentage of authors in my study. Their signatures and essays indicate a desire among worldwide women writers of French to be respected simply as authors, free from the oft-confining specifications that restrict the way they are received and read. Their involvement in this movement also exhibits a willingness to advocate avidly for different angles of interpreting written works that transcend the limits of a label.