222 FRENCH REVIEW 91.2 Diop, Papa Samba, et Alain Vuillemin, éd. Les littératures en langue française: histoire,

mythe et création. Rennes: PU de Rennes, 2015. ISBN 978-2-7535-4188-7. Pp. 828.

This vibrant collection of seventy papers explores the intersection of history, memory, and myth by extrapolating from the theories of Barthes, de Certeau, Ricœur, Nora, and others, to literature written in French on five continents. Mirroring the diverse geographic origins of literary production under investigation, contributors hail from twenty-nine countries. The introductory notes outline the history of French colonization and the subsequent spread of the French language to contextualize the inaugural keynote address and eight chapters. Chapters 1 and 2 focus on the connec- tion between poetry, writing, and history by putting forth arguments that echo the Manifeste des 44 and largely increase the visibility of Romanian writers. Chapter 3 features Belgian, Polish, Romanian, Cambodian, and Haitian texts that grapple with the notion of dictatorship as a historical moment in African and European countries. The remaining sections are divided by the geographic origins of authors writing either from their native land or an adoptive country such as France, Canada, or the United States. Chapter 4 covers the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean, and Asia, while chapters 5– 8 move from Europe to the Mediterranean, Africa, and Quebec. The large scope of articles proves that analyzing the complex diversity of literature written in French is an ambitious and challenging endeavor. Although this book is not an exhaustive resource, readers will certainly appreciate the variety of narrative genres, along with a blend of key figures (Dib, Glissant, Kourouma, Lê, Maillet, NDiaye), marginalized writers (Soth Polin, Anna de Noailles), and neglected regions of the French-speaking world (Comorian, Serbian, Bulgarian literary productions). Overall, the articles highlight a broad spectrum of historic events, eras, sites, and people that were absorbed in the imaginary of migrant authors, communities, or nations. It is rewarding to discover the various levels of meaning the concepts of history and myth can produce in the French-speaking world. However, these findings could have been summarized in chapter introductions or codas as they can lead to thought-provoking ideas for regional or cross-regional comparisons. The most noteworthy contributions explore innovative approaches (intermediality in African literature; the paradigms of Goethe’s world literature for Algeria), or comparative readings (Kossi Efoui and Dany Laferrière; Annie Ernaux and Ken Bugul). Another strength is the attempt at periodization for Algerian, Cameroonian, or Comorian literature. However, despite the rich collection of ideas, the level of depth varies largely. Within some articles footnotes and bib- liographies are more thoroughly developed, yet occasional errors in typography (174, 245), word order (10, 480), punctuation (quotation marks for a novel, 561), and issues with formatting (702–03) or editing (comments from reviewers on 629) unfortunately take away from the overall quality of the volume.

McDaniel College (MD) Silvia U. Baage