Description
Book SynopsisMediating Violence from Africa examines how both African and non-African French-speaking authors, filmmakers, editors, and scholars have packaged, interpreted, and filmed the violent histories of post–Cold War Francophone Africa.
Trade Review“George MacLeod’s outstanding study of mediation in Francophone African literature, film, and testimony offers an unfailing and generous commitment to foregrounding representations of lived African experiences. His book models a political and critical refusal of transparency and pathos, while simultaneously showing the complexity, often paradoxical, of how we access contemporary Africa(s).”—Lydie Moudileno, Marion Frances Chevalier Professor of French at the University of Southern California
“George MacLeod convincingly shows how iconic African figures of the post–Cold War—the child soldier, the survivor of the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda, the Islamist terrorist, and the celebrity humanitarian—were first mediated in dominant Western political discourses before finding their way into Francophone cultural productions.
Mediating Violence from Africa charts new ways for reading violence in Francophone African cultural productions of the past thirty years.”—Koffi Anyinefa, professor and chair of French and Francophone studies at Haverford College
“The pertinence of the iconic figures chosen to analyze how political violence in Africa is mediated combined with George MacLeod’s innovative transnational and post–Cold War timeframe make this book an important and timely contribution to the field of Francophone studies.”—Alexandre Dauge-Roth, author of
Writing and Filming the Genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda: Dismembering and Remembering Traumatic History“
Mediating Violence from Africa grants new insights for students and scholars of Africa today. It is a well-crafted critical study that is fascinating to read. George MacLeod is an excellent scholar and literary critic.”—Mildred Mortimer, author of
Women Fight, Women Write: Texts on the Algerian WarTable of ContentsList of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Notes on Sources and Translations
Introduction: Iconic Figures and Post–Cold War Mediations
1. Using the Child Soldier
2. Filming Terrorists, Filming Timbuktu
3. Rwanda’s Tutsi Survivors
4. The Celebrity Humanitarian Ally
Conclusion: Mediating Violence from Africa in the Post–Post–Cold War Period
Appendix: Data Visualization of Vénuste Kayimahe’s Marginalizations in Discussions of “Rwanda: Writing as a Duty to Remember”
Notes
Bibliography
Filmography
Index
