The Depiction of Death in French-Language Sub-Saharan African Novels

In French-language Black African novels, death holds the narrative together; "it is not merely evoked but constitutes the point where the tensions of the story converge. Indeed, what strikes the reader, even when skimming through French-language Black African novels, is the omnipresence of death throughout the fictional narrative.The value of this work lies in its capture of the current state of African societies and the trajectory of their evolution, whereas ethnology has traditionally focused solely on synchrony-not without a certain exoticism-in its examination of so-called "primitive" societies. On the contrary, the novel expresses the tensions of contemporary society, its fantasies, and the way it envisions the future, since the thought of death-the way it must guard against the anxiety of death, for example-describes its approach to existence.