Toward the Decolonization of the Europhone African Novel is a treatise
on the problematics of language choice in Europhone African literature.
Vakunta's research is rooted in the notion that the postcolonial African
fiction writer is at a crossroads of languages, groping for linguistic
re-orientation. Using the prose of fiction of Patrice Nganang, Ahmadou
Kourouma, Mercedes Fouda, Nazi Boni, and Gabriel K. Fonkou as corpus, he
contends that postcolonial African fiction is an offshoot of a
linguistic tinkering process that enables writers to tinker with the
language of the ex-colonizer in a deliberate attempt to divest
indigenous writing of its hegemonic vestiges.
Peter Wuteh Vakunta is Professor of French Literature and Francophone
Studies at the United States Department of Defense Language Institute
(DLIFLC) in Monterey-California.