Abstract EN:

The appearance of the african figure of pwer in both western and african prose fiction is due to several factors ; the historical situation resulting from the states attaining independence; the increased public interest in politics and, above all, originality of a character who or be broadly defined in historical terms but nevertheless leaves considerable scope for escapism. Prose narrative plays on this dichotomy of imagination and reality. Making the novel fluctuate between opposing poles of eye-witness account and dream sequence. The protagoniste expresses, in a manner that is both spectacular and grandiloquent. The different ideological arguments associated with the wielding of power; the latter always being treated in a gaily grotesque way. That it is a time of great changes helps to explain the political uncertainty and the contradictions that characterise the wide variety of options chosen in whatever area : in developing the country , in overseeing the transition fom myth to history, and in constructing a state a nation out of what is still a heterogeous society. Africa remains like some huge unworked quarry, exploited by adventurers to provide the western imagination with a wealh of fantasm and african fiction with the sorry spectacle of human barbarity.