Abstract EN:

The togolese writer felix couchoro, ignored for many years by literary critics, was revealed to the public in 1987 by the work of a. Ricard (naissance du roman africain p. A. ). Couchoro's oeuvre includes twenty or so novels and two essays published mostly as serials in the government run daily newspaper, togo-presse. With nearly 3000 pages, this relatively extensive production can be characterized principally by the phenomenon of re-writing. Certain works rewritten after intervals of a few years exist in two versions. Others first published in book form subsequently appeared as serials in togo-presse after shortening. + metamorphosis of 'ecriture' in the novels of felix couchoro ; is a study of this re-writing phenomenon. The analysis is at two levels. The first level consists of a confrontation between the work and its manuscript, or between two versions of the same text. This semiotic approach permits us to highlight the sociological bases of the techniques of transformation in couchoro's writings and to understand his motivations. The second level of the study analyzes the functioning of the novelist's writings in a diglossic situation in which french is in contact with an african language, in the context of interaction between the oral and the written, in its relationships with the bible. In conclusion, couchoro's literature is the meeting place of two cultures, the european and the african. An anthropological approach analyzes the effects of this meeting and shows that far from showing a conflict, couchoro chooses a cultural syncretism to translate a certain sociological reality.