Between the Biological Father and the Spiritual Father: The Choice of the Break on the Example of Characters of Boubacar Boris Diop Cover Image

Entre le père biologique et le père spirituel : le choix de la rupture chez les personnages de Boubacar Boris Diop
Between the Biological Father and the Spiritual Father: The Choice of the Break on the Example of Characters of Boubacar Boris Diop

Author(s): Serigne Seye
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Philology, Theory of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: Boubacar Boris Diop; African novel; biological father; spiritual father; break; family relationships

Summary/Abstract: This article is aimed at analyzing the break between fathers and their children in the texts of Boubacar Boris Diop, in which another figure often replaces that of the biological parent. Participating in the identity construction of his foster son, the spiritual father grants him memory which is contradictory to the official history. This clash, omnipresent in Boubacar Boris Diop’s novels, testifies of a change of paradigm revealing a deep crisis of the father figure in African postcolonial societies. We are indeed very far from the mythicized image of the pater nobilis which used to be omnipresent in African literature.

  • Issue Year: 2017
  • Issue No: 12
  • Page Range: 129-139
  • Page Count: 11
  • Language: French