What is a writer? Some would say that a writer is someone who writes regularly. Others might say that a writer is someone whose work is published by a major publishing house. Yet others would define a writer as someone whose work is read widely. These few responses reveal the social, constructed, and relational nature of literary identity and identification, and show that to be a writer means, first and foremost, being identified as such by a social community. From a Bourdieusian perspective, such identification stems from successful integration into the literary field, as defined by the field's socially dominant gatekeepers. As Gérard Mauger notes, ‘l'accès au métier d'artiste est toujours subordonné à un droit d'entrée ou à un capital spécifique – c'est là une propriété de n'importe quel champ de production de biens symboliques – mais ce droit d'entrée est plus ou moins codifié, formalisé, objectivé, scolairement certifié’ (2006: 11). Recourse to the concept of a ‘right of entry’ thus underscores the unequal nature of a system that governs literary recognition.

In a study of the social and geographic dynamics of literary prize attribution, Sylvie Ducas analyses the place held by francophone writers in the French literary field:

In this instance, the separation of the categories ‘francophone literature’ – highlighting the non-Frenchness of the writer – and ‘French literature – indicating the Frenchness of the writer – reveals ways of classifying works independent of their formal properties. Further, as Ducas aptly notes, within the group of non-French writers in French, those from Africa are more often subject to literary marginalization.