Epistemic Violence in the Postcolony: Interrogating the Colonial Legacy and War in Francophone African Literature

The trope of violence, in its diverse iterations, is recurrent in colonial and postcolonial African literatures written in French. This chapter is interested in analysing two forms of violence: epistemic/intellectual violence as well as war as a form of violence. The point of departure made in this chapter is to ask if the multifaceted expressions of violence in the postcolonial aftermath are inherited from colonialism. The chapter then interrogates the mechanics and logics of violence in the postcolony. To make sense of the representation of violence, the chapter makes use of Achille Mbembe’s ideas on the postcolony and how the exercise of power is vulgar and violent. The overarching claim that is made in this chapter is that there is need to look at violence being solely the by-product of colonialism. Violence, this chapter contends, can have different causes and it is always important to strive to understand violence within its particular geohistorical and cultural contexts. This chapter reads the representation of violence in seminal literary texts as well as more contemporary texts. These texts span different periods and also cover different geopolitical zones of the African Francophone world and offer diversely textured representations of violence in Africa.