ABSTRACT
This chapter describes how Calixthe Beyala has contributed to change views on both Africa and feminism in France, challenged the European literary system, and played a crucial role in the development of Francophone African literature in Swedish translation. The first section relates the feminism that Beyala became a spokesperson of. The term féminitude is explained by departing from her earlier literary production and published novels in the 1990s. The second section argues for how Beyala's work has challenged and contributed to develop the literary system in France, through equilibrist navigations in-between opposite poles, such as African–European, outsider–insider, a dispossessed immigrant–a privileged established author, commercial–intellectual, prize-winning author–plagiarist. The third section describes how Beyala's work has been received and influential in the Nordic cultural sphere of Sweden. The analysis shows how images of Africa, as well as established ideas about French literature, are negotiated through public dialogues, sparked by the Swedish translations of the work Les honneurs perdues (Lost Honors, 1996) and Les arbres en parlent encore (The Trees still Speak about it, 2002). Through reception studies, it becomes clear that Beyala paved the way for a younger generation of female African diasporic authors in Swedish translation.
