In Search of El Dorado?

The theory that Africans from modest backgrounds fatalistically risk their lives pursuing a mythical French El Dorado permeates recent African novels on immigration and literary criticism. This book argues that the theory evades the contemporary relevance of African traditional values, the personal implication of Western-educated Africans in the global politics of immigration, the pathological alienation at the heart of the French Republic, and most of all, the unethical nature of apportioning blame to modest African migrants who bear the greatest human cost of unjust immigration policies. The book exposes both fiction writers and literary critics in a tragic search for a middle ground between Africans seeking human dignity, and France that obstructs this endeavor in its adherence to imperial ambitions. The attempt at neutrality is further hampered by writing in French and addressing a Republic whose collective conscience is dulled by centuries of rationality and racism. This work may interest scholars of Francophone African literature and immigration, as well as anyone interested in an alternative to literary theories that minimize the lived experiences of Africans.