French Literature Reviews - 2026

Buata B. Malela, L’Afrique Monde, t. 1 : Le Risque à l’épreuve du temps, de l’espace et du numérique
Philosophy, Anthropology and Ideas

L’Afrique-monde I examines risk as a political, social, and philosophical category through the lens of African experiences of late modernity. Drawing on the ontology of risk, actuarial governmentality, spatial critique, and the philosophies of Relation, the book demonstrates how time, territory, and power intertwine within unique postcolonial configurations. From security regimes and digital systems to fragmented cities and mobile networks, the analysis highlights the tension between algorithmic standardization and local practices of reappropriation. Africa thus emerges as a conceptual laboratory for testing alternatives to the technocratic management of uncertainty. Engaging in a dialogue with both African and global thought, the work offers a situated reading of globality that remains attuned to opacity, plural temporalities, and everyday forms of agency.

Buata B. Malela is a professor of 20th- and 21st-century French and Francophone literatures at the University of Limoges. A member of the EHIC research center (Human Spaces and Cultural Interactions), his research focuses on Francophone literary discourses (Africa, the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean), the questioning of the subject in Francophone media cultures, the sociology of literature, African intellectuals, and contemporary pop music.

The volume positions contemporary African experiences within broader debates on late modernity, spatial critique and the philosophy of Relation. Addressing themes such as security regimes, algorithmic standardization and urban fragmentation, the study connects postcolonial configurations to global technocratic management.