Abstract: To refer to a work of literature is to evoke notions of canon and aesthetics which stem from models of judgement and appraisal that are both ideological and socio-historically constructed. Yet when the literary text is classified as “Francophone”, whether classical or in some way transgressive, the question of literary merit seems secondary to the essentially ethno-sociological and political dimensions of the text. Les Soleils des Indépendances, after being rejected by several French publishing houses, was well received in Canada in 1968 and only then was published by Seuil in 1970. Could this initial rebuff be explained by the fact that the work of Kourouma was too removed from the Western literary canon, breaking from the established norms expected from an author of the former colonies in its subversive new aesthetics?
