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Habiter la frontière
« La littérature parle avant tout d'humanité. C'est donc le monde que j'écris, à partir de mes lieux de référence, à partir de mes personnages subsahariens ou afrodescendants.»
Après ses textes littéraires, Léonora Miano nous donne aujourd'hui Habiter la frontière, un recueil de conférences données entre 2009 et 2011. L'auteur revient sur son appartenance à une génération de Subsahariens suffisamment bien dans leur peau pour explorer les zones les plus ténébreuses de leur expérience. Elle témoigne d'un amour exigeant envers l'Afrique subsaharienne et ses peuples, et appelle à la compréhension de soi-même, à l'acceptation de la responsabilité individuelle et collective comme premier levier pour se hisser vers une vraie liberté, entière. Elle exhorte l'Europe à sortir de la culpabilité pour se confronter objectivement à son passé et revient sur les thèmes qui traversent son œuvre, notamment les questions liées aux identités frontalières et à l'hybridité culturelle. La frontière dit que les peuples se sont rencontrés, quelquefois dans la violence, la haine, le mépris, et qu'en dépit de cela, ils ont enfanté du sens.
Cet ouvrage trace des perspectives sur la démarche esthétique de son auteur et de ses confrères, tout en s'imposant comme un manifeste politique.
Après ses textes littéraires, Léonora Miano nous donne aujourd'hui Habiter la frontière, un recueil de conférences données entre 2009 et 2011. L'auteur revient sur son appartenance à une génération de Subsahariens suffisamment bien dans leur peau pour explorer les zones les plus ténébreuses de leur expérience. Elle témoigne d'un amour exigeant envers l'Afrique subsaharienne et ses peuples, et appelle à la compréhension de soi-même, à l'acceptation de la responsabilité individuelle et collective comme premier levier pour se hisser vers une vraie liberté, entière. Elle exhorte l'Europe à sortir de la culpabilité pour se confronter objectivement à son passé et revient sur les thèmes qui traversent son œuvre, notamment les questions liées aux identités frontalières et à l'hybridité culturelle. La frontière dit que les peuples se sont rencontrés, quelquefois dans la violence, la haine, le mépris, et qu'en dépit de cela, ils ont enfanté du sens.
Cet ouvrage trace des perspectives sur la démarche esthétique de son auteur et de ses confrères, tout en s'imposant comme un manifeste politique.
144 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2012
1 person is currently reading
95 people want to read
About the author
Léonora Miano
55 books172 followersNée à Douala au Cameroun, Léonora Miano vit en France depuis 1991 où elle a fait des études en lettres.
Elle a gagné plusieurs prix littéraires :
- Prix Louis-Guilloux 2006
- Prix du Premier Roman de Femme 2006 pour L'Intérieur de la nuit
- Prix René-Fallet 2006
- Prix Bernard-Palissy 2006
Born in Douala (Cameroon), Leonora Miano lives in France since 1991 where she studied literature.
She has won several literary awards:
- Prix Louis-Guilloux 2006
- Prix du Premier Roman de Femme 2006 pour L'Intérieur de la nuit
- Prix René-Fallet 2006
- Prix Bernard-Palissy 2006
Elle a gagné plusieurs prix littéraires :
- Prix Louis-Guilloux 2006
- Prix du Premier Roman de Femme 2006 pour L'Intérieur de la nuit
- Prix René-Fallet 2006
- Prix Bernard-Palissy 2006
Born in Douala (Cameroon), Leonora Miano lives in France since 1991 where she studied literature.
She has won several literary awards:
- Prix Louis-Guilloux 2006
- Prix du Premier Roman de Femme 2006 pour L'Intérieur de la nuit
- Prix René-Fallet 2006
- Prix Bernard-Palissy 2006
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 21, 2021
Léonora Miano has been on my radar for quite some time. I want to read more from writers from Cameroon since it's my dad's home country but thus far I've been doubtful whether my French is good enough for that undertaking. Luckily, Miano's work has become accessible to a German-speaking audience for the first time due to the publication of this essay collection and one of her novels by w_orten & meer in 2020.
Thus far, I've mainly read books on racism by African Americans or Afro-German authors. On top of some theoretical texts by African and Caribbean scholars. I've never read essays focusing on the Black experience in France. Therefore, Miano's insights as a sub-Saharan immigrant to France were very valuable.
Miano's verdict is sober: Black people with French citizenship are missing in the narrative of the nation, they are pushed to the margins, and do not appear in literature or other cultural outlets. The few Black icons that do exists in the nation's narrative are thoroughly whitewashed, like the famous author Alexandre Dumas.
France's whitewashed historiography is extremely problematic given that the nation has subjugated numerous non-white societies in the past and still extends to overseas territories with its departments in the Caribbean, South America, and the Indian Ocean.
One thing becomes crystal clear when reading Miano's account and analysis: France needs to strongly rethink its self-image and ideals in the 21st century! There must be an end to clinging to a vanished world, France's own hybridity must be inhabited, a normal - that is, constantly changing (!) - formation of identity must be pursued with serenity. French culture is not set in stone, it is created every day, and it is the people who live in France who shape it.
There are many similarities between the experiences of Black people in Germany and in France. However, one difference, which is due to the fact that more Black people live in France because of France's longer colonial history, is that Black people in France have their roots either in sub-Saharan Africa or in the Caribbean. These two "groups" are pretty heterogeneous. Miano speaks of tensions and resentment between the groups, which she sees as rooted in the African collaborations in the deportation of enslaved people (which became the ancestors to the people in the Antilles). Miano also dissects the class differences between the groups in France. Historically, labor from sub-Saharan Africa was allocated to manufacturing and that from the Antilles mainly to public service, therefore, people from the Antilles are usually socially better off.
These tensions may be unnecessary and frustrating, but they fundamentally define and shape the relationship between African people and Caribbean people (in France) to such an extent that all talk of unity is nothing but empty rhetoric and pure hypocrisy for many people on both sides.
In this essay collection, Miano also opposes the neocolonially motivated project of Francophonie with her concept of "Afrophonie", which emphasizes the performative dimension of speaking and writing. Miano speaks in favor of using the word Afropean as opposed to Black European. She calls for a de-racialised identity and a self-designation along cultural references.
Personally, that's an approach I reject. I think it would be more valuable if terms like "German" or "French" were understood more broadly by the white dominant society, so that these terms also include BIPOC. I find "Afropean" rather superfluous and wishy-washy as a term. And in a certain way it is also an admission of defeat in the vain of: "We'll never be considered German, so let's just call us Afropean instead."
Don't get me wrong, I understand why Miano wants to get away from nationalism (an honorable goal!), but that would then also have to apply to white Germans and white French people. They would then have to be only "European" according to Miano's analysis. And I don't know if I find that applicable. It's hard enough to identify with a whole nation ... I don't see how stretching that to a whole continent would make anything easier.
And even though I didn't agree with all of Miano's analysis I found it very needed and refreshing that she was scrutinizing many terms that we have just accepted as common ground because they've been in use for so long, like "Black European" or "Francophonie". One of my favorite parts of this essay collection was when she deconstructed the word "transatlantic slave trade" and explained why she uses the term "transatlantic deportation of sub-Saharan people" instead: "To speak of trade is to deny everything that happened beforehand and that constitutes much of the sub-Saharan experience. It is to devalue the suffering of the people who never saw their loved ones again because they had been relocated and deported. The word does not do justice to the agony suffered, nor to the vehemence of the sub-Saharan resistance against these deportations."
In conclusion, Eine Grenze bewohnen – Erinnerung dekolonisieren is an interesting essay collection that is very broad in scope. I read it shortly after Ngugi wa Thiongo's Decolonising the Mind and Aimé Césaire's Discourse on Colonialism, and it fit right in. Miano's essays aren't as sharp (and this collection is sometimes very hard to follow, thus my 3-stars rating) but even so worth checking out. This collection will be a great fit for people who want to get the anti-racist perspective of an African woman on the topics of identity politics and post- and neocolonialism in times of globalisation.
"I locate my identity on the border, not on the dividing line, but on the contrary in the area of permanent intertwining."Eine Grenze bewohnen – Erinnerung dekolonisieren ("Inhabiting a border – Decolonising memory") is a collection of four essays, from 2012 and 2016, in which Miano discusses neo- and post-colonialism, being Afropean, and the colonially shaped narrative of the transatlantic deportation (Miano rightfully opposes the word "trade").
Thus far, I've mainly read books on racism by African Americans or Afro-German authors. On top of some theoretical texts by African and Caribbean scholars. I've never read essays focusing on the Black experience in France. Therefore, Miano's insights as a sub-Saharan immigrant to France were very valuable.
Miano's verdict is sober: Black people with French citizenship are missing in the narrative of the nation, they are pushed to the margins, and do not appear in literature or other cultural outlets. The few Black icons that do exists in the nation's narrative are thoroughly whitewashed, like the famous author Alexandre Dumas.
"To be Black in France is to be denied the right to appropriate your own great personalities, to have no heroes and no cause to be proud. To be Black in France or to even just talk about Black people is to be perceived as a threat, regardless of what you said."Miano notes that the Cornel Wests, Micheal Eric Dysons or bell hooks of this world have no French equivalent, and deliberately so, Black French thinkers that shape a country's narrative and the self-conception of its people are not desired.
France's whitewashed historiography is extremely problematic given that the nation has subjugated numerous non-white societies in the past and still extends to overseas territories with its departments in the Caribbean, South America, and the Indian Ocean.
One thing becomes crystal clear when reading Miano's account and analysis: France needs to strongly rethink its self-image and ideals in the 21st century! There must be an end to clinging to a vanished world, France's own hybridity must be inhabited, a normal - that is, constantly changing (!) - formation of identity must be pursued with serenity. French culture is not set in stone, it is created every day, and it is the people who live in France who shape it.
There are many similarities between the experiences of Black people in Germany and in France. However, one difference, which is due to the fact that more Black people live in France because of France's longer colonial history, is that Black people in France have their roots either in sub-Saharan Africa or in the Caribbean. These two "groups" are pretty heterogeneous. Miano speaks of tensions and resentment between the groups, which she sees as rooted in the African collaborations in the deportation of enslaved people (which became the ancestors to the people in the Antilles). Miano also dissects the class differences between the groups in France. Historically, labor from sub-Saharan Africa was allocated to manufacturing and that from the Antilles mainly to public service, therefore, people from the Antilles are usually socially better off.
These tensions may be unnecessary and frustrating, but they fundamentally define and shape the relationship between African people and Caribbean people (in France) to such an extent that all talk of unity is nothing but empty rhetoric and pure hypocrisy for many people on both sides.
In this essay collection, Miano also opposes the neocolonially motivated project of Francophonie with her concept of "Afrophonie", which emphasizes the performative dimension of speaking and writing. Miano speaks in favor of using the word Afropean as opposed to Black European. She calls for a de-racialised identity and a self-designation along cultural references.
Personally, that's an approach I reject. I think it would be more valuable if terms like "German" or "French" were understood more broadly by the white dominant society, so that these terms also include BIPOC. I find "Afropean" rather superfluous and wishy-washy as a term. And in a certain way it is also an admission of defeat in the vain of: "We'll never be considered German, so let's just call us Afropean instead."
Don't get me wrong, I understand why Miano wants to get away from nationalism (an honorable goal!), but that would then also have to apply to white Germans and white French people. They would then have to be only "European" according to Miano's analysis. And I don't know if I find that applicable. It's hard enough to identify with a whole nation ... I don't see how stretching that to a whole continent would make anything easier.
And even though I didn't agree with all of Miano's analysis I found it very needed and refreshing that she was scrutinizing many terms that we have just accepted as common ground because they've been in use for so long, like "Black European" or "Francophonie". One of my favorite parts of this essay collection was when she deconstructed the word "transatlantic slave trade" and explained why she uses the term "transatlantic deportation of sub-Saharan people" instead: "To speak of trade is to deny everything that happened beforehand and that constitutes much of the sub-Saharan experience. It is to devalue the suffering of the people who never saw their loved ones again because they had been relocated and deported. The word does not do justice to the agony suffered, nor to the vehemence of the sub-Saharan resistance against these deportations."
In conclusion, Eine Grenze bewohnen – Erinnerung dekolonisieren is an interesting essay collection that is very broad in scope. I read it shortly after Ngugi wa Thiongo's Decolonising the Mind and Aimé Césaire's Discourse on Colonialism, and it fit right in. Miano's essays aren't as sharp (and this collection is sometimes very hard to follow, thus my 3-stars rating) but even so worth checking out. This collection will be a great fit for people who want to get the anti-racist perspective of an African woman on the topics of identity politics and post- and neocolonialism in times of globalisation.
June 15, 2017
He leido este libro en su traducción en castellano (Traducción de Lola Bermúdez Medina - Vivir en la frontera, por Léonora Miano).
Juntando sus comunicaciones sobre afropeos que la autora presentó en las conferencias en diferentes ciudades del mundo, se aborda un tema de mucha importancia en el mundo de hoy, que es la de no esencialismo de las identidades culturales y la necesidad de reconocer la híbridez cultural teniendo en cuenta sus multiples modalidades que dependen de los factores historicos, políticos, y trayectorias personales de los individuos...
Miano las llama identidades fronterizas, referiendose a la frontera no solo como un punto de tensión sino también del encuentro, negociación y transformación. Se propone una perspectiva realistica de como acercar la pertenencia de los afrodescendientes en Francia, y con este objetivo se refiere al discurso histórico, investigación y análisis de la historia no contada, escondida, tapada, borrada (con los ejemplos de tales grandes figuras históricas como Alexandre Dumas), al papel de música jazz y blues en su reflexion de las identidades híbridas, y también a sus propias obras literarias que reflejan las sensibilidades de una afroeuropea. Miano muestra una profunda maestria como artista, observadora e investigadora, y nos transmite su inqueitud por ver una Francia que deje de alejarse de si misma y por experienciar el proceso de la construcción de un mundo postoccidental, que se alejaría de nombrar culturas como inferiores y las identidades como rigidas y puras.
Juntando sus comunicaciones sobre afropeos que la autora presentó en las conferencias en diferentes ciudades del mundo, se aborda un tema de mucha importancia en el mundo de hoy, que es la de no esencialismo de las identidades culturales y la necesidad de reconocer la híbridez cultural teniendo en cuenta sus multiples modalidades que dependen de los factores historicos, políticos, y trayectorias personales de los individuos...
Miano las llama identidades fronterizas, referiendose a la frontera no solo como un punto de tensión sino también del encuentro, negociación y transformación. Se propone una perspectiva realistica de como acercar la pertenencia de los afrodescendientes en Francia, y con este objetivo se refiere al discurso histórico, investigación y análisis de la historia no contada, escondida, tapada, borrada (con los ejemplos de tales grandes figuras históricas como Alexandre Dumas), al papel de música jazz y blues en su reflexion de las identidades híbridas, y también a sus propias obras literarias que reflejan las sensibilidades de una afroeuropea. Miano muestra una profunda maestria como artista, observadora e investigadora, y nos transmite su inqueitud por ver una Francia que deje de alejarse de si misma y por experienciar el proceso de la construcción de un mundo postoccidental, que se alejaría de nombrar culturas como inferiores y las identidades como rigidas y puras.
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