They practically touch elbows at the seminar table as they hunch over their copies of a slim volume that has dozens of accent aigu marks per page. Eight undergraduates in majors that range from comparative literature to mechanical engineering are citing Sartre and Proust, and commenting on nostalgie, autobiographie and Afrique as their professeur raises the big questions.
“What is literature?” Madame Boyi asks, posing the query in mellifluous French. “What is the entire truth?”
The book that lies open around the table is a 1952 novel that was an immediate hit with French critics. L’Enfant noir, by African writer Laye Camara, recounts the story of a young Guinean boy’s life as he leaves his village to attend high school in a big city, then leaves his country to attend university in Paris.
“It gives us a good image of the early days of colonization and contact with France,” Elisabeth Boyi says to her students in French 133: Literature and Society in Africa and the Caribbean. “We can see it in the transition for the boy from the traditional into the context of modernity.”
An internationally recognized specialist in francophone literature, Boyi is an associate professor of French and comparative literature. Born in Zaire and schooled in France, Belgium, Spain and Italy, she is fluent in nine European and African languages and has a working knowledge of ancient Greek and Latin. Boyi came to Stanford in 1995, after teaching at Duke University and Haverford College.
Boyi says her course is a first glimpse of francophone literature for most who enroll. Because class discussions are conducted in French and the novels can be challenging to read, prospective students often want to test the linguistic waters before signing up. “They ask, ‘Do you think I will make it?’ and I say, ‘Well, you are the only one to know,’” Boyi says. “I tell them to come to one or two sessions to see the level of the course, and then they can decide.’”
Many of those who stay have clearly defined research interests, and some, like senior Lauren Osofsky, have taken previous courses with Boyi. “She’s very warm and approachable as a person, and that translates into her teaching,” says Osofsky, a product design major who is minoring in French and physics and is researching the effects of the Algerian war on French society. “Because she’s from Africa, it’s a unique opportunity to study with someone who actually has firsthand knowledge of the subject.”
Each time she teaches the course, Boyi chooses four novels that convey the changes in francophone Africa and the French Caribbean that have resulted from colonization and the Atlantic slave trade. The works often examine how new identities have been constructed, particularly by women, and Boyi selects novels on the basis of their vivid writing, imagery and structure. “Even though we are learning about culture and society, I have to take aesthetic components into consideration, and I also have to pick books I like,” she says.
The question that surfaced in a recent class discussion of L’Enfant noir was whether the book was a true autobiography or a work of fiction. Was the author also the narrator—une vraie personne? Did his memories of his childhood, his moments de nostalgie, ring true? Was the story almost too good, too inspiring—une histoire de grandir?
In fact, says Boyi, her students hit upon the same issues as African readers. “The book won a literary prize and was celebrated by French critics in the days when African writers were almost nonexistent,” she says. “But some African critics have been rather negative, saying, ‘How come he’s talking about his childhood in such a beautiful, idyllic way, and there is no word about the mental and physical violence that comes with colonization?’” There may not be an easy answer, but Boyi and her students will struggle with the question.
