‘Francophone writing’, the French language, and French literature

Taken at face value the term francophone may seem to mean merely ‘French-speaking’, but in practice it tends to be coded and restrictive. Its connotations are shaped by the controversial history of ‘official’ francophonie, the project to promote a notional worldwide community of French speakers, resisted by those who see in it an exercise in neo-colonialism. The boundaries implied in a phrase such as ‘French and francophone literature’ are blurred and to some extent racialised: thus Assia Djebar, say (whose work I discuss below), will fall under the ‘francophone’ rubric while Hélène Cixous will not, even though both were born in colonial Algeria, have lived most of their life in France, use French as their main language, and have published in France. In other words, the phrase ‘French and francophone literature’ at once embraces and marginalises certain writers of French; it appears tautological from one point of view and racist from another.

If the notion of ‘francophone writing’ nonetheless has a certain currency and validity, this must be understood in relation to the development, from the late eighteenth century onwards, of the idea that each nation has, or should have, its national literature and its national language. In reality, very few countries have ever had anything like a single language spoken by everyone within the country's borders, and outside spoken only by emigrants and language-learners.