Orality

Black Africa is generally presented as the continent of orality. This theme appears in the first reports of European travelers and would durably characterize the following anthropological literature, as well as the texts written by Africans, in the domain of fiction or the essay. The pregnancy of this theme led to the dual vision which set the oral in opposition to the written, Africa to Europe, and tradition to modernity.

This way of thinking about Africa – either by relation to the West or through the division that it will see as a result of its contact with the West – singularly distorts reality. In fact, the situation that has characterized Black Africa for many centuries does not amount to this opposition between the oral and the written. It is defined rather by the interaction between three ways of expression and diffusion: the oral, the written, and the printed word. This distinction is particularly important because it first points out the existence in certain regions of Africa...