Australian Journal of French Studies

Abstract

This article explores the ways in which "imagining twenty-first century literature in French" is directly shaped by historical and contemporary patterns of print publishing. Growing scholarly interest over the last decade in factors relating to the production and circulation of print has begun to draw out the importance of the material life of books in what we perceive as "literature", and particularly how circumstances vary greatly within the vast literatures produced in major world print languages such as French. Here the division between "French" and "francophone" literature seems securely established institutionally, though it is a permanent source of debate. This article seeks to draw attention to some key aspects of the production and circulation of print literature which underpin this, focussing on literature in Guinea as a case study.