The multi-talented VéroniqueTadjo is a writer, illustrator, painter and academic, born in Paris and raised in Côte d’Ivoire, with an impressive list of publications to her name.
She chatted to Beth Shirley of The Weekender about writing in French and her impressions of children’s literature in South Africa, amongst other things:
She obtained a doctorate in African-American literature and civilisation from the Sorbonne in Paris. After a stint at Howard University in the US, on a Fulbright Scholarship, she lectured in the English department at the University of Abidjan, moved to London, and is now based in Johannesburg.
She is the chairwoman of French studies at Wits University, and sits on various literary award-judging panels, such as the European Award literary prize and the Caine Prize for African Writing, as well as facilitating writers’ workshops.
But being artistic and an African is no easy task in an atmosphere thick with conflicting ideologies and a well-documented crisis of identity. There is contention regarding the role of African writers in the post-independence era.
Tadjo came under fire for using the “oppressor’s language” — French — in her literary projects. Writers will use the language they are most comfortable with , but often European languages are accused of missing the nuances of African lived experience, and the writers who use them are dubbed neocolonial puppets, elitist, divorced from “the people ”.
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Author photo courtesy Centre for Creative Arts/Peter Searle.
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