Shuttle Between Interlanguage and Relexification in the West African Europhone Literature: An Interview with Chantal Zabus

Abstract

Professor Chantal Zabus is one of the earliest non-African Africanists who researched into the nature, structure and usage of European languages in African literature. Her seminal book, entitled The African Palimpsest: Indigenization of Language in the West African Europhone Novel, which examines the contact of some West African languages with European languages, forms the basis for this interview. The interview revolves around the language of African postcolonial literatures in European languages, feminism, excision and circumcision. Zabus discusses freely on her biography, research interests and professional preoccupations. She concludes on an optimistic note that African languages have capacity of growing to the standard of being boldly imprinted on the map. She granted this interview in her home in Brussels, Belgium, in June 2010.