La circulation du savoir africain dans le canon littéraire français : le retour de transfert et le discours savant

The aim of this study is to illustrate, in a diachronic way going from 1960s to the contemporary period, the return movement of a scientific discourse on African knowledge meant as an intercultural product and object of transfer between France and Africa. A first step aims at highlighting the gap between a scientific approach, as defended in the Western world and transmitted to African elites from the colonial era, and the exotic discourse through which the West has forged an imaginary knowledge of Africa. Subsequently, I intend to show how the critical discourse on African science and arts that has developed has posed an epistemological challenge through the integration of reflexive subjectivity into the enuciation device (Mudimbe, Mbembe). Finally, I would like to suggest that through a strategy of cross referencing between the African cultural field and the French literary field, diasporic writers (Mabanckou/Waberi) contribute to the circulation of a common transcultural heritage which is gradually becoming institutionalized in the French literary canon.