From Weltliteratur to World Literature to Littérature-monde: The History of a Controversial Concept

Summary

The term littérature-monde, proposed by the forty-four signatories of the manifesto which appeared on 16 March 2007 in the journal Le Monde to describe a concept further developed in their book published by Gallimard in May of the same year, is not exactly a neologism. Although the term Francophonie, against which it sets itself, has a considerable number of problematic connotations, littérature-monde is itself just as loaded. Indeed, we should be aware of its associations and should explore the issues raised by them. Although it appears to be a completely new expression in French, the forty-four's concept of littérature-monde is actually drawn from three preexisting concepts or phenomena. The first is the concept of travel literature and world writing developed since 1992 by Michel Le Bris, himself a signatory of the manifesto. For him, littérature-monde signifies a literature open to the world or, in other words, a literature which speaks of the real and the lived rather than turning in on itself in a state of narcissistic self-consciousness (2007: 25). The second is the concept of the Tout-monde, defined by the Martinican thinker and writer Édouard Glissant as being ‘le monde actuel tel qu'il est dans sa diversité et dans son chaos’ [today's world as it is in its diversity and chaos] (Chanda, 2000). The Tout-monde is not a systematic or rationalizing vision of the world, but instead underlines the global spread of the concept and practice of creolization, a practice of cultural exchange which rejects unequal power relationships.