Abstract:
Francophone novelists of West Africa often choose the Sahel region as the setting for their stories. For aesthetic reasons however, this 'external' reality undergoes a transformation as the imagination of the writers work on it. So what does the Sahel look like in the novels? This thesis studies how different writers present the same reality to meet specific aesthetic demands.
Camara Laye in The African Child paints the Sahel region as a paradise in order to support a nationalist, negri tudinist stance. Cheikh Hamidou Kane in Ambiguous Adventure presents a pure, spiritual Sahel as an appropriate setting for a mystical experience. In Sahel, Bloody Drought (by Mandé-Alpha Diarra) and The Bassari Archer (by Modibo Keita), the Sahel becomes respectively a macabre region and an animistic stronghold. Both novels try to appeal to the conscience of the powers that be by focussing on the plight of peasants in a drought-stricken Sahel. Ahmadou Kourouma, disgusted with self rule under African leaders focusses on the sordid aspects of the Sahelian region. Finally, Williams Sassine, lamenting the conditions of the underprivileged in African governments, presents the Sahel as a great cupola where poor oppressed people find themselves imprisoned. By and large, therefore, the Sahel as it appears in francophone african novels, is a difficult, uncomfortable area - an indication that socio-politico-economic conditions there are not too bright either.
