ABSTRACT

Building on Genette’s work on the paratext as a liminal space between the text(s) and the world, where a hybrid discourse – at once social and literary – unfolds, the aim of this paper is to read African small magazines through their paratext. Front and back covers, editorials and illustrations play a key role in magazines’ self-presentation and “ensure the text's material presence in the world, its reception and consumption.” Shifting our gaze to their paratext, with examples ranging from Drum (1951–today) and Joe(1973–1979), Présence Africaine(1947–today), Black Orpheus(1957–1975), Okyeame (1960–1972) and Transition (1961–today) to contemporary magazines like Kwani?(2003–today), and Chimurenga(2002–today) we seek to analyse the two spaces they connect: the textual space within the periodicals and the extratextual space where metatextual discourses about them circulate. Using Meizoz's concept of “posture,” we seek to highlight ways in which paratextual elements participate in their positioning within the “rhizomatic configuration” of continental or pan-African magazines and within intersecting national, continental or global literary and cultural spaces. We argue that the posture(s) and “literary identities” of small magazines emerge from processes of programmatic and dialogic (self-)fashioning whose traces are visible in paratextual elements.

摘要

以热内特关于副文本作为文本和世界之间的界限空间的研究为基础，在那里展开了一种混合的话语——社会和文学——同时展开，本文的目的是通过它们的副文本来阅读非洲小杂志。封面和封底、社论和插图在杂志的自我展示中起着关键作用，并“确保文本在世界上的物质存在、接受和消费”。将我们的目光转移到他们的副文本上，例子包括Drum（1951-今天）和Joe（1973-1979）、Présence Africaine（1947-今天）、Black Orpheus（1957-1975）、Okyeame（1960-1972）和Transition（ 1961 年至今）到像Kwani这样的当代杂志？（2003 年至今）和Chimurenga（2002 年至今），我们试图分析它们连接的两个空间：期刊内的文本空间和关于它们的元文本话语传播的超文本空间。使用 Meizoz 的“姿势”概念，我们试图强调副文本元素在大陆或泛非杂志的“根茎结构”中以及在交叉的国家、大陆或全球文学和文化空间中参与定位的方式。我们认为，小杂志的姿态和“文学身份”来自程序化和对话式（自我）塑造的过程，其痕迹在副文本元素中可见。