The Ethnic Labelling of a Genre Gone Global: A Distant Comparison of African-American and African Chick Lit

Abstract

: Originally defined as an Anglo-American phenomenon, starting with Helen Fielding ’ s best-selling novel Bridget Jones ’ s Diary (1996), chick lit has spread rapidly across various linguistic and cultural markets. There is a broad consensus that this is a transfer from the centre to the periphery, from the original genre to numerous adapted subgenres and variations. For the latter, the problematic term “‘ ethnic ’ chick lit, ” which in the broadest sense includes all chick lit by authors with non-Western sociocultural backgrounds, has become established. The implicit (re-vision, recovery) and explicit (circulation, collage) comparative strategies introduced by Susan Stanford Friedman serve as a methodological framework for analysing such practices of ethnic labelling. These strategies are applied not through a close reading of primary literature but through a distant reading, or rather comparison, of the Anglo-American chick-lit label with two of its so-called “ ethnic ” subgenres or variations: African-American and African chick lit. A re-visioning of Anglo-American chick lit through a recovery of African-American chick lit, as well as a focus on the label ’ s circulation in Africa, resulting in a collage of African chick lit, demonstrates that the label ’ s dissemination was not as linear as has been suggested by the dominant discourse of chick lit gone global.