This chapter explores mobility practices in the context of leisure travel. It analyzes the representations of different modes of transport in two classics of travel writing, Bernard Dadié’s Un Nègre à Paris (1959) and Tété-Michel Kpomassie’s L’Africain du Groenland (1981), and then moves on to novelistic representations of holidaymaking in Simon Njami’s African gigolo (1989) and Kidi Bebey’s Mon Royaume pour une guitare (2016). The last section of the chapter focuses on Felwine Sarr’s contemporary travel chronicle La Saveur des derniers mètres (2021). In this chapter Afroeuropean mobilities are topographically somewhat varied, ranging from Kpomassie’s Arctic destination to French provinces and other European cities in Njami’s and Bebey’s texts, and, eventually, beyond Europe altogether in Sarr’s travelogue. The chapter highlights the role played by different modes of transport in the construction of the meanings of the destination, on the one hand, and the figure of the traveler, on the other. Modes of mobility and transport contribute to the texts’ poetics of mobility by means of changes in narrative rhythm and speed (Dadié and Kpomassie), through plot and character construction (Njami and Bebey), and, finally, as a wholesale organizational narrative structure (Sarr).

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Mobilities of African and Afroeuropean Leisure Travelers

  • Anna-Leena Toivanen

摘要

This chapter explores mobility practices in the context of leisure travel. It analyzes the representations of different modes of transport in two classics of travel writing, Bernard Dadié’s Un Nègre à Paris (1959) and Tété-Michel Kpomassie’s L’Africain du Groenland (1981), and then moves on to novelistic representations of holidaymaking in Simon Njami’s African gigolo (1989) and Kidi Bebey’s Mon Royaume pour une guitare (2016). The last section of the chapter focuses on Felwine Sarr’s contemporary travel chronicle La Saveur des derniers mètres (2021). In this chapter Afroeuropean mobilities are topographically somewhat varied, ranging from Kpomassie’s Arctic destination to French provinces and other European cities in Njami’s and Bebey’s texts, and, eventually, beyond Europe altogether in Sarr’s travelogue. The chapter highlights the role played by different modes of transport in the construction of the meanings of the destination, on the one hand, and the figure of the traveler, on the other. Modes of mobility and transport contribute to the texts’ poetics of mobility by means of changes in narrative rhythm and speed (Dadié and Kpomassie), through plot and character construction (Njami and Bebey), and, finally, as a wholesale organizational narrative structure (Sarr).