This glossary explains key French literary terms, movements and concepts in plain English for readers approaching Francophone literature for the first time.
- Francophonie
- The community of French-speaking peoples and nations across the world.
- Négritude
- A literary and intellectual movement founded in the 1930s by Aimé Césaire, Léopold Sédar Senghor and Léon-Gontran Damas, asserting the value of Black African culture and identity.
- Créolité
- A cultural and literary movement from the French Caribbean, celebrating the mixed Creole heritage of the region as distinct from both African and European roots.
- Bildungsroman
- A coming-of-age novel. Many key Francophone African works, such as Camara Laye’s L’Enfant noir, follow this form.
- Francophone Africa
- The African countries where French is an official language, including Côte d’Ivoire, Sénégal, Cameroun, the Democratic Republic of Congo and many others.