ABSTRACT
How have the conditions of production of African culture changed in the past half century? We now see an increasing number of major writers and filmmakers living abroad, while still being considered “African” artists. To what extent has the increasing turn toward foreign presses, foreign audiences, Western university classes and foreign film festivals marked the production of African culture? More significantly, what has been the change in the kinds of literature and cinema produced by expatriate African authors and filmmakers, when compared with literature and cinemas produced by those living in Africa? We can see that these two categories—indigenous African authors and foreign-residing African authors— might be a problematic binary, on both ends: Africans living in Africa are continually exposed to global cultures, and Africans living abroad have often transplanted their African cultural baggage with them, or may live in largely African environments, like “Little Senegal” in New York, London's Peckham-Rye or Paris's nineteenth arrondissement. Despite these caveats, it would seem that most cultural production in Africa has become notably different from that of authors or filmmakers living abroad, as seen in the texts' sensibilities, styles, genres and modes. To cite some examples, Nollywood films are as different from those of most Paris-based filmmakers as it is possible to be; postmodern influences mark those living abroad, whereas realism still marks much of the work of those living at “home.” 1 This chapter will look for a few notable examples that exemplify these differences and speculate on whether our critical approaches must change with this new historical situation.
