It is easy, too easy, to exploit the exotic representations and categories of Africa as illustrated in, say, English and French literature, and to marginalize Africa in the field of what Bernard Mouralis has called "Contreliteratures." There is, as we know, a tradition which, for centuries, has conveyed this exotic idea of Africa. Instead of grounding this project from within this controversial and controverted literary tradition, I prefer to understand the concept and history of this literature in such a way that I can transcend the continuity and pervasiveness of an exoticist imagination, and at the same time, account for its conception.
--V.Y. Mudimbe, in The Idea of Africa
You have been warned: The Idea of Africa is utterly philosophical at its printed core, given some of its serious and alarming preoccupations.
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