Ye azali mwána moke néti ngai

Sociopoetics of childhood in Congolese children's literature in the XXIst century

Abstract

Childhood is a concept that varies from era to era (Ariès 1962; Cunningham 2017) and from one culture to another (Boyden 1990; Twum-Danso Imoh et al. 2; Hollindale 76-79). This article examines the sociopoetics of childhood in Congolese (DRC) children's literature. On the one hand, it analyzes the textual and pictorial representations of childhood in a corpus of 16 children's books by Congolese authors and illustrators, and on the other, examines which conceptions of the young readership are implicit in the latter's formal choices. These include the idea of the child as a developing being, in need of guidance from adults with knowledge, and the conception of the child as competent, autonomous and resourceful. Finally, there is the image of the innocent, vulnerable child in need of protection. These different conceptions of childhood may be linked to the cultural origins of the target readership - some of these books are published in Europe and others in the DRC - but also to their genre. For example, the representation of the child as innocent and vulnerable is most often found in books about children in social crisis, and must therefore be linked to the idea of childhood constructed by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and to humanitarian discourse. The article also concludes that conceptions of childhood in some of these Congolese works vary from those conveyed in European children's books about sub-Saharan children.