Les crivains africains francophones et l'essai: littrature d'ides ou prise de position?

The first part of this essay analyses the works of African writers between 1900 and 1945 and attempts to establish the extent to which these writings reflect the cultural, pedagogical and political aims and objectives of the French colonizing power. The situation was to change considerably after the Second World War. The establishment of the Union franaise effectively ended the colonial education system and Africans were allowed access to universities. This in turn was to give rise to an output of academic writings, which can be classified under two broad headings: dissertations (and research articles) and essays. The essays published after 1960 tended to be principally concerned with three broad themes: social and political questions, literary criticism, philosophy and the epistemology of human sciences. Having outlined these subject areas, the present article examines the central role played by these essayists in the intellectual debate at that time, commenting in particular on their attitude towards Senghor's established views of Ngritude as well as the opinion of the university institution.