Repeating Authorial Blackface in Analogous Adaptation of Probably Ghostwritten The Dark Child

After decades of investigation, leading scholars conclude that the founding novel of francophone African literature was likely written by Europeans. Camara Laye’s The Dark Child (1953) was sold as an autobiography and became the most read African novel in French. The idyllic narrative that African critics accused of colonial apologetics is now accused by Western scholars of being the product of an anti-independence conspiracy supported by François Mitterrand. When claims of ghost-writing were still dismissed as petty African jealousy, Laurent Chevallier relocated Laye’s childhood story to present-day Guinea with an analogous film adaptation that both builds on and parallels the novel. The French director introduces L’enfant noir (1995) not as his own interpretation but that of Laye’s relatives who also act in his film. Although Chevallier sells his story as authentically local, his Eurocentric adaptation of gender, polygamy, and reproduction has provoked accusations of Western plotting against African values.