Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-30T22:57:07.469Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
This chapter is part of a book that is no longer available to purchase from Cambridge Core

12 - Léopold Sédar Senghor: Race, Language, Empire

from Section 1 - Twelve Key Thinkers

David Murphy
Affiliation:
University of Stirling
Charles Forsdick
Affiliation:
University of Liverpool
David Murphy
Affiliation:
University of Stirling
Get access

Summary

Since the beginning of the new millennium there has been a remarkable turnaround in the critical appraisal of the life and work of Senegalese poet-president, Léopold Sédar Senghor, the writer most closely associated with the Francophone literary movement of Negritude. In the course of the preceding decades, Senghor had come to be seen by numerous critics (if by no means all) as an anachronistic figure, whose ideas had served their time and were no longer useful in thinking about Africa. The high point of the more recent positive reappraisal came in 2006 (the centenary of his birth), which l'Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie – an organization of which the Senegalese writer is considered by many to be the founding father – had decreed to be L'Année Senghor (The Year of Senghor). Major (and minor) French publishers rushed to repackage and reissue existing material on Senghor, including a new edition of his collected poetry (Senghor, 2006), updated editions of critical works (Guibert and Nimrod, 2006), and translations of work previously published in English (Vaillant, 2006); and also to commission new (and often hagiographic) studies by former colleagues and acquaintances (see, in particular, Bourges, 2006; Brunel et al. 2006; Mémoire Senghor, 2006; Njami, 2006; Roche, 2006). In the course of the year, this led to the publication of well over 20 volumes that dealt with his career as poet, politician and theorist. (This Senghormania extended to the publication of a volume in his honour by a collective of cartoonists from Burkina Faso: see Senghor, cent ans, 2006).

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Print publication year: 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×