Copyright by Beatriz Eugenia Schleppe 2003 The Dissertation Committee for Beatriz Eugenia Schleppe certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Empowering New Identities in Postcolonial Literature by Francophone Women Writers Committee: Dina Sherzer, Supervisor Harold Wylie, Co-Supervisor Alexandra Wettlaufer Robert Dawson Sheila Walker Empowering New Identities in Postcolonial Literature by Francophone Women Writers by Beatriz Eugenia Schleppe, M.A., B.S., B.B.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May, 2003 Dedication I dedicate this dissertation to my wonderful husband Dylan Schleppe whose constant support and encouragement made it possible for me to juggle my own complicated identities of wife, mother, student and teacher and finally finish this insane endeavor. This accomplishment is as much his as it is mine. Empowering New Identities in Postcolonial Literature by Francophone Women Writers Publication No._____________ Beatriz Eugenia Schleppe, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2003 Supervisors: Dina Sherzer and Harold Wylie Twentieth-century French scholars have extensively studied postcolonial literature dealing with identity issues rooted in colonialism, yet these studies do not address the emergence of new definitions of Identity found in the controversial literature of today’s Francophone women writers of immigrant descent living outside their country of origin – either in France or is the U.S. My dissertation is such a study. It shows how through their novels, these young writers re-define and re-construct such notions as race, gender, ethnicity and nationality and are continuously challenging fixed, hegemonic labels such as “French,” “Black,” “Woman,” “African,” and “American.” I explore the methods of resistance to these powerful labels and how this resistance leads to a mediation of identities in three Francophone women writers from different French ex- colonies: Calixthe Beyala from Cameroon, Leïla Sebbar from Algeria and Edwidge Danticat from Haiti. I show how the intersections between plural identities serve as sites of negotiating and re-creating the “postcolonial woman” v and how through their work postcolonial Francophone women writers dare to imagine new realities in a constantly shifting and emerging multi-ethnic society. The dissertation is divided into an introduction, three chapters and a conclusion. The introduction discusses the power of fixed identity labels and shows how until now they have been taken for granted in Francophone literatures. I present my theoretical approaches to the breakdown of these labels by introducing Homi Bhabha’s definition of hybridity as a “metonymy of identity” or Identity as performance. I expand on Judith Butler’s idea of women’s “performance of gender” as a more complex “performance” for black or African women living in such multi-cultural cities as Paris and New York. The first chapter focuses on Leïla Sebbar’s work and on the “interstices” created by the constant mobility and instability found in her Shérazade trilogy. It shows how in the texts themselves (both in structure and content) as well as outside the texts (in personal comments, correspondences, interviews, etc.) Sebbar negotiates Identity within the “open spaces” that result from the intersections or interactions of the “here’ and “there” as well as the “then” and “now.” The second chapter focuses on the re-creation of female identity in Calixthe Beyala’s Assèze l’Africaine by looking at how the female protagonists juggle between Western definitions of femininity and that of their mothers and grandmothers. This chapter shows how the “performance of gender” becomes a much more complex performance for Black or African women living in a multicultural city like Paris. The third chapter explores the work of Edwidge Danticat and shows how through her re-telling of traditions/the past Identity gets re-invented. I discuss the power of storytelling passed down from generations of women, and I rely on Trinh T. Minh-ha’s ideas on women and storytelling as a means of “un-writing” tradition and “writing anew.” This “new” tradition serves to give voice to the vi postcolonial woman’s account, or Her story (vs. History), who otherwise is silenced in other historical discourses. In my conclusion I explore another space of Identity negotiation which is between resisting and “conforming” by looking at reception issues (popularization of Otherness) and neo-colonialism. I examine whether these authors are affirming their emerging reality as an Identity in constant flux or whether they are just targeting an audience like Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club (in the case of Danticat) or Sebbar and Beyala’s multi-ethnic hip Parisian readers. I finally suggest that the space in-between these two positions is yet another way of resisting the power of identity “labels” and daring to re-create new possibilities. vii Table of Contents Introduction....................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1 Leïla Sebbar’s Nomadic Reterritorializations of Identity.................. 21 Chapter 2 Calixthe Beyala’s Infiltration of Identity...........................................81 Chapter 3 Edwidge Danticat’s Diasporic Voices from the “Beyond” Rethink Creoleness and Identity ...........................................................................137 Conclusion Popularizing and Valorizing a Global Métissage...........................187 Bibliography...................................................................................................202 Vita ...............................................................................................................213 viii Introduction It is the trope of our times to locate the question of culture in the realm of the beyond.The "beyond" is neither a new horizon, nor a leaving behind of the past... Homi Bhabha, Locations of Culture Thinking "beyond" White, Black, Arab, French, American, African, and so many other fixed hegemonic labels that have been reinforced for centuries all over the world, is not an easy task. After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, and the racial tensions that followed, the definition of “American,” for example, was definitely re-assessed by many throughout the country. Who is American? What should an American look like? And of course, should a person remotely resembling the preconceived profile of an "Arab" or "Muslim" be set aside as suspect? Questions like these that resurface during moments of crisis – be it terrorist, social, or economical (like blaming job shortages on an excess of immigrants) are nevertheless lived and felt everyday by members of any diaspora group who continuously try to find a way to define themselves from their marginal position. Fixed labels are not sufficient anymore, though, as more and more people consider themselves part of several groups and even go “beyond” given labels and have “new” non-conventional ways of defining themselves. In 1 an interview regarding her work, for example, the “francophone”1 writer, Calixthe Beyala outwardly challenges the existence of fixed identity labels. Her interviewer asks her whether her shocking writing is the “African” way to express the concerns for her people, and in turn she responds by asking: “What is the African way?”2 This type of discourse reflects the continuous negotiating, questioning, and reformulating of Identity experienced by today’s diasporic postcolonial subjects living in between cultures. Through their work, writers like Beyala from Cameroon, Leila Sebbar from Algeria and Edwidge Danticat from Haiti who live outside of their “homeland”, respond to this position by re-defining and re-constructing such notions as race, gender, ethnicity and nationality through the challenging and re-fashioning of fixed hegemonic labels such as “French”, “Black”, “Woman”, “African”, “Beur” and “American” – just to name a few. In today’s global and plural societies connected now not only by television but by the easy access to the internet and thus the world, such labels are now obsolete since it is impossible to live in a vacuum untouched by your neighbors – whether they live next to you or on the other side of the ocean. The contact between different cultures and its effects are unavoidable but especially when the cultures involved have had a long-term relationship as in the case of France and its ex-colonies as well as the U.S. and any country it has occupied, like Haiti. It is 1The word "francophone" in this work either refers to the language of choice (i:e: French) or to the "French" elements that unavoidably make up part of these women's identities through colonization. 2 this constant contact that leads those who are playing both fields, as these writers do, to devise new definitions of identity by continuously rediscovering and recreating themselves through their work - daring to imagine new realities in a constantly shifting and emerging multi-ethnic society. These women’s mainstream works both in France (in the case of Beyala and Sebbar) and the U.S. (in the case of Danticat) serve as mechanisms of social change by opening the doors to the complexities of the postcolonial diasporic woman negotiating between plural identities and showing how it is possible to participate in more than one culture and