Fanon before Fanon: Atipa, Batouala and the Literary Beginnings of Decolonization in the Francophone World

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This article examines two francophone novels written before the theoretical emergence of Frantz Fanon: Atipa. Roman guyanais (1885) by Alfred Parépou and Batouala (1921) by René Maran. Although separated by nearly four decades and situated in distinct colonial contexts, French Guiana in 19th-century South America marked by the abolition of slavery and assimilation policies, and Oubangui-Chari in early 20th-century Central Africa subjected to brutal colonial domination, these works anticipate several issues that Fanon would later theorize in Black Skin, White Masks (1952) and The Wretched of the Earth (1961). By analyzing the aesthetic and discursive strategies employed by Parépou and Maran, such as the use of satire, irony and the narrative voice of the colonized, the article highlights a literary genealogy of decolonization within the francophone world. While Atipa subverts linguistic hierarchies by centering popular oral expression, Batouala, awarded the Prix Goncourt in 1921, generated debates around its critique of colonial order. Rereading these works through a Fanonian lens allows us to reconsider the history of anticolonial thought and the place of francophone literatures within it.