Chapter 8 Paris “Taule de Merde”: Yémy’s Neocanonical French Literature
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Abstract
Self-described as an ULO (Unidentified Literary Object) or “OLNI” (objet littéraire non-identifié), Yémy’s 2005 four-hundred-page long novel/prose poem Suburban Blues is characterized by its blending of multiple, very recognizable literary styles of canonical French literature, ranging from Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Balzac, Darrieussecq and even La Fontaine. The scope of this book chapter is to first examine the notion of “postcolonial romanticism” as a way to aptly represent marginal postcolonial Paris, and marginal postcolonial France at large. In addition, this chapter questions the conditions of literary “canonization” in terms of incorporation of pre-existing French, and Paris-centered literature. Instead, it contends that in Yémy’s case, heteroglossy between African oral tradition and the French literary canon is what confers value to the text. As a result, it is the derisive dissonance brought to typical Paris-centered French superiority discourse that is being studied here—a shift which enables important conclusions related to topics of assimilation and post-slavery reparations.