The article examines the formation and development of the African French-language emigrant novel. Based on the literary works of African writers, the author shows the evolution of the narrative space, the main characters of the works, their place in society and their understanding of their own identity. The author analyzes the gender and language characteristics of emigrant writing.

Keywords: African diaspora, African immigrant writers, African Francophone literature, emigrant novel, artistic discourse, French language, Afrique-sur-Seine, Tropical Africa, identity.

With the arrival of African writers and artists in Paris in the 1920s and the emergence of the concept of Negitude in Paris in the 1930s and 1940s, the city became a meeting place for African intellectuals. It was Paris that saw a surge in literary activity in the 1950s and 1960s.The 1980s saw the emergence of a new generation of African writers living in France, whose work was very different from that of their predecessors, both in its nature and in its focus. For decades, French-language novels by African immigrant writers have focused on Africa, Africans, and the search for personal identity. Many writers left for France not because they wanted to, but because of political beliefs or security concerns. But in the 1990s, the situation changed: Today we are not dealing with short-term internships in France, but with emigration caused by the economic and political situation in Africa, "a rich continent inhabited by poor people" [Gourévitch, 2009, p. 72], and the search for a new life for yourself and your family. As the Soninke people say, " it is better to work in a foreign land than to starve at home." The traditional vectorization of the narrative space "Africa-Europe-Africa", which prevailed from the 1930s to the 1980s, has lost its relevance and no longer reflects the current situation in society.

The "glorious" era of Negritude, sung by L.-S. Senghor, is being replaced by the time of "migritude". The neologism migritude was first used in an article by the well-known French literary critic Jean-Claude. Chevrier's book is dedicated to the new generation of African francophone literature, and appeals to intensive migration processes and the assimilation of European values without complete assimilation, while maintaining its own cultural attitudes [Chevrier, 2004, p. 8]. The appearance of this neologism marked a gap between the Africa that the writers of the new generation tell us about and Africa in the understanding of their predecessors. Strict geographical correlation criterion, usually used for classification and characterization of geographical features.-

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It turns out that the characteristics of writers ' creativity are not applicable to "children of the postcolonial period". The label "Franco-quelque chose" attached to them implies that it is impossible to "wash up on either shore". On the one hand, they are not part of French literature, despite the fact that many of them have a French passport. On the other hand, as immigrants, they are excluded from the national literatures of their native African countries. In such a situation, as A. Waberi writes, they turn out to be" not quite French and not quite African "(les "pas tout à fait") [Waberi, 1998, p. 7].

If African writers of the first generation, despite the fact that they have lived in France for a long time, cannot be fully classified as immigrant writers - their Western experience is rather an integral part of their biography, allowing them to comprehend their work, then modern writers break with traditional territorial and cultural engagement. The literature they create is imbued with the spirit of nomadism and goes beyond the traditional categorization of world literature. Being deterritorialized in nature, it is formed at the junction of several cultures, languages, and imaginary spaces. This gives immigrant writers the right to demand recognition of their literary legitimacy, renouncing their unconditional attachment to both their native culture and the culture of the country to which they moved, thereby striving to create a new identity and a new literary space that goes beyond the usual. They strive to become full-fledged subjects of the World Republic of Literature, the main postulate of which is the idea of supranationality.

There is a reconstruction (or even deconstruction) of the world's literary spaces and the formation of a new generation of Francophone literature - the so-called Afriqiie-sur-Seine [Cazenave, 2005]. Christian Albert, a researcher of the African emigrant novel, identifies three main periods of its development (Albert, 2005). During the first period (1930-1960), the autobiographical novels of African intellectuals who visited France feature first immigrant workers and then students as the main characters. Authors so often resort to this topic that such narratives become almost an obligatory stage in a writer's career [Albert, 2005, p. 30].

Thus, at the first stage of emigrant writing, two main plot lines can be traced - the search for personal identity by reflective intellectuals and the exploitation of Africans by the French as cheap labor or cannon fodder.

In the second period (1960-1980), the topic of immigration fades into the background, as writers are more interested in what is happening in their home countries, which have just become independent. Immigrants play a secondary role in the novels and are viewed from a different perspective.

The third period, which began in the 1980s and continues to this day, was marked by a rapid growth of immigrant literature. Writers of this period struggle for recognition of the universal nature of their work, abandon the concept of monolithic identity in favor of "rhizome" (according to E. Glissant) [Glissant, 1995].

In light of the above, the fact that a large number of novels focus on the life of African immigrants, their existence in Paris and connections with their native continent, the humiliations of underground life and attempts to find themselves in a new society is not surprising. In most novels, the main issue becomes a sense of isolation from their native land, alienation, rejection of a new ideology, culture and language. "White in Africa is associated with culture, history, thought. An African in Europe is a representative of a different race, a biological species, " notes the Congolese writer and researcher Pius Ngandu Nkashama with bitterness [Ngandu, 1987, p. 25].

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Imagining France as a "promised land", the heroes of African novels literally rave about it. For example, Jojo from J. R. Essomba's novel "Northern Paradise" (Essomba, 2000) hangs a map of France on the wall in his room and learns the names of French cities every evening. The characters in A. Mabanckou's novel "Tricolor" (Mabanckou, 1998) memorize the scheme of the Paris metro and choose station names as nicknames. But the first impression of meeting a dream turns out to be discouraging. Africans who have never been to Europe realize that their physiological differences can be an insurmountable barrier to getting to know a new society.

Sooner or later, all heroes face manifestations of racism. It is often illustrated in a literary text through a scene with a small boy, borrowed from Franz Fanon's pamphlet "Black Skin, White Masks", in which the child says: "Mom, look, there's a Negro, I'm afraid" (Fanon, 1971). A similar scene is already present in the 1960s novels "An African in Paris" by B. Dadie [Dadie, 1959 ]and" Parisian Mirages " by W. Sose [Socé, 1965]. The repetition of the same plot makes it possible to judge how painful the issue of race is for an African immigrant, which in advance condemns him to social marginalization:"...I can't get the thought out of my head that I'm out of place, that I can't find a job.<...> I often feel like I'm wearing too many insignia. I feel like an ant that has lost its way and is trying to get into someone else's anthill and is immediately recognized as an outsider and given to understand it, which is constantly pushed back..." [Biyaoula, 1996, p.224].

The problem of day-to-day survival, poverty, dullness, and hopelessness is a constant of African immigrant discourse, an axis of narrative. The novel by Daniel Biyaoula with the vivid title "Agonies" is indicative, the events of which unfold in a gloomy suburb of Paris called Parkville, from the very sight of which "such melancholy attacks you that you already begin to wonder if you were buried" [Biyaoula, 1998, p.12]. Narrative space, enclosed in the gloomy walls of apartment buildings, because of which you can not see the horizon, creates an additional sense of hopelessness. Against the background of this gloomy suburb, the life of immigrant characters takes place, the intertwining of their destinies has a tragic ending. They all share one "common denominator" - poverty and utter hopelessness. A young Congolese man who is unfairly expelled from a university loses his scholarship and becomes a homeless man. Maud, who grew up in France, hopes to build a relationship with a white classmate from the lyceum, but faces the opposition of her father, an authoritarian and strict man, who sends her to live in Africa. Ghislain, arriving in France at the age of fifteen, begins dating a representative of another ethnic group. Intricate intrigues eventually lead to a real drama, which gave the name to the entire work.

"The Festive Square" by Togolese writer Sami Tchak (2001) is a novel about the unsuccessful search for personal identity. It deals with the fate of the son of immigrants, a French citizen from birth. In his own words, he belongs to the category of people born "here" (in France) to parents who were born "there" (in Africa). The main character, whose name is never mentioned throughout the novel, tries to determine his essence, to understand which camp he belongs to. The Africa that his parents represent is incomprehensible to him, and the dark color of his skin prevents him from integrating into French society, in which there is so little room for immigrants. Like many of his compatriots, the main character's father fulfilled his dream-he went to France: "Dad was happy - the very fact that he boarded the plane made him a winner. Everyone was pinning their hopes on him. He had to succeed for all of them. Where he was going, he was supposed to act as their ambassador" [Tchak, 2001, p. 19].

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In reality, this "ambassador" is forced to sweep first Parisian sidewalks, and then the subway. He has to abandon the idea of a triumphant return to Africa. He loses touch with his homeland, but at the same time continues to consider himself an African and cannot integrate into the new society. The main character himself, although he has a French passport, is unhappy, living in the "homeland", which he did not really choose, but also cannot return to Africa, which is foreign to him: "And now, Dad, you are asking me to go there to live? I can't believe it! I'm not saying it's better in France. But I was born French, even if I'm not really French, because the color of my skin doesn't match my identity card. But I know for a fact that I'm not from there, because I don't really have anything to do with it. There it's like a postcard <...> I want to say that France is my native country, but not my homeland. I mean, I don't really have a homeland. People think that you only need to be born somewhere to consider this place your homeland, but this is not so! Homeland is not just citizenship, it is in the blood flowing in your veins " [Tchak, 2001, p. 22].

Thus, for a second-generation African immigrant, the continent native to his ancestors turns out to be just a postcard with exotic species, as for any European. The above quote shows that the hero does not even use the word "Africa" in his speech, replacing it with a vague "there". The tragedy is that due to the racial factor, France remains a stepmother for him, and he himself turns out to be a man without a homeland.

Perhaps one of the most famous writers who paid special attention to the life of African immigrants in Paris in his work is Alain Mabankou. In his first novel "Tricolor" (Mabanckou, 1998), the author describes in detail and in many ways the subculture of " can "(sape) and its adherents - "sapeurs" (sapeurs), or "Parisians"1. The main character of the novel Massala-Massala leaves for France on a tourist visa and becomes one of the many illegal immigrants-squatters who do not have a permanent job, forced to obey the "Parisians" with experience in everything.

Together with other illegal immigrants, he illegally lives in a tiny windowless room in a house intended for demolition, where on the wall next to a broken mirror hangs a sample of a letter to a friend who remained at home, telling about the success of the newly minted "Parisian". The hero is hiding from the police, as his tourist visa has long expired. Over time, he inevitably comes to the attention of a crime boss named Prefect, who gets him a fake identity card, for which he forces him to buy subway tickets using a stolen checkbook, and sell them on the black market. Abandoned by the Prefect to his fate, Massala-Massala falls into the hands of the police. The hero is in prison for a year and a half. "This is my France!" he exclaims (Mabanckou, 1998, p. 203). At the end of his sentence, the hero is deported to the Congo. It is noteworthy that after all the experience, the hero does not exclude the possibility of returning to France to take revenge.

It is also necessary to distinguish between male and female characters in emigrant novels, as well as between works written by women and men. Indeed, male characters in works written by both men and women experience a strong sense of nostalgia and often recall the past and their homeland. Male writers such as S. Njami, D. Biyaula, emphasize the inner instability of the hero, which increases until

1 Subculture "san" (from the French Argotic. sape-clothes, clothes) and the Society of Fashionable Elegant People (Société des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élegantes) appeared in the 1970s-1980s in the city of Brazzaville (Republic of the Congo). It is based on the cult of designer clothing, the ability to dress, speak, and behave in public. The sappers include many iconic figures in African pop culture.

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it does not result in a crisis of personal identity, thus showing that stability is only an external shell, a fiction with which male characters try to get rid of feelings of emptiness and nostalgia. In the novels of the women writers, which is especially clearly demonstrated in the work of the Cameroonian novelist K. Beyala, the desire of female characters to improve, become part of society, and consider immigration as an opportunity for self-realization is clearly emphasized.

Such works as" The Little Prince of Belleville "[Beyala, 1992]," Mama has a Lover "[Beyala, 1993]," Afrika Assez "[Beyala, 1994] and" Lost Honor " [Beyala, 1996] focus on the transformation of gender roles in the African community of Paris. Destabilized, weakened, and deprived of the prerogatives of traditional African society for men, male characters are contrasted with women with excellent adaptability, who are given new opportunities, freedoms, and initiatives by the experience of immigration.

It is necessary to note the ambiguous nature of the writer's work, who was accused of plagiarizing the novels of Howard Buten "I killed myself when I was five years old", Ben Okri "The Way of Hunger", a number of works by Charles Williams, Romain Gary, Paul Constant, Alice Walker, as well as her political commitment (open support for M. Gaddafi and L. Gbagbo).

Nevertheless, despite this, the writer's works have gained wide recognition in France (the novel "Lost Honor" received the Grand Prix of the French Academy), including due to her innovative approach to language. Rangira Beatrice Gallimore, analyzing the work of K. Beyala, draws attention to the African expressions used by the writer, as well as a number of neologisms and cripples from African languages to French: "In this world <...> we speak poulassie, in other words, French, in which the sounds are "skewered, sprinkled with spices and seasonings". The author "presents us with all this to the sound of a drum, the cheerful music of a balafon, the cries of griots "[Gallimore, 1997, p. 181].

The theme of adaptation of African immigrants of all ages continues to excite writers of the XXI century. The heroes of the novels "The Black Suburb" by T. Ryam [Ryam, 2006 ]and " The Heart of Leopard Children "by V. N'sondé [N'sondé, 2007] came to France as children. Nevertheless, their life stories are tragic. The main character of the novel "Black Suburb" Sebastien was adopted in Benin by a French couple. After the divorce of his adoptive parents, Sebastien lives with his mother in the suburbs of Paris. Young friends of Sebastien are typical immigrants from a poor neighborhood: Farid, who was expelled from school at the age of eleven for trying to detonate a homemade bomb, and Christophe, a mulatto who contemptuously calls his mother "white" and wants to appear more African than the Africans themselves. Sebastien is fond of football, and the coach assigns him a date to pass the competitive selection process for the number of professional players of a prestigious club. On the eve of an important event on the way from the disco, Sebastien and his friends do not miss an ambulance at the intersection and start a brawl, despite the persuasions that a human life is at stake. When Sebastien returns home, he learns that his mother has just died of cardiac arrest - it was to her that the doctors in the ambulance were rushing. The end of the novel is grim: Christophe commits suicide, Farid and Sebastien go to prison. Once released a year later, Sebastien is treated in a psychiatric hospital, but his sanity never returns.

A similar plot is the novel "The Heart of Leopard Children" by V. N'sonde, written in the genre of a monologue on behalf of the main character. Even the lines of the supposed dialogue with the police officers are essentially monologues - we only hear the narrator's voice, but not his interlocutor. The novel opens with a scene in a Paris prison, where the main character is awaiting sentencing and recalls the story of his life, starting with

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since he immigrated to France with his family at the age of three. Without giving his name, the narrator introduces us to his friends, with whom he grew up together in the Parisian suburbs - the son of a polygamist and nephew of a marabout Driss and a former bully and criminal turned religious fanatic, Kamel-and, of course, with the love of his life — Mireille. After breaking up with her, the hero gets drunk and foolishly kills a police officer. Once in prison, he realizes what he has done and finds answers to his questions in the wisdom of his ancestor, to whom he constantly turns: "Push me into the cell, my ancestor is waiting for me there!" [N'sondé, 2007, p.42]. The hero goes through a kind of internal "initiation", he is ready to start life all over again, but for him it turns out to be too late.

The author vividly describes the difficulties that his hero had to face from a very young age. It is difficult for him to adapt to the climatic conditions ("the first person who greeted me was the cold") and to the new society ("I smile, remembering how then I was afraid of bright eyes that reminded me of living flesh, not to mention narrow nostrils "[N'sonde, 2007, p. 81-82]). He does not speak enough French and does not know French traditions, which makes other children laugh:"...In class, we were celebrating the Day of Adoration of the Magi, and I, who did not understand either the language or this tradition, got a bean in a pie. "He's got it," they all shouted in unison. Because of a misunderstanding, mistaking the encouragement for condemnation, I burst into tears" [N'sondé, 2007, pp. 81-82, 83].

The hero reproaches French society for the fact that immigrants in it are obviously prepared for a place only on the periphery: "When Drissa and I were children, we regularly went to a bakery in our neighborhood, the saleswoman smiled at us ("how cute they are with their curls!"), stroked our cheeks and curly hair, gave us sweets, we politely thanked her < ... > Later, by the age of thirteen or fourteen we have become foreigners, criminals, "integration", "immigration", underground migrants, the threshold of tolerance proclaimed by political programs. We have written on our faces all the sorrow of the earth, for which it does not want to pay " [N'sondé, 2007, p. 27-28].

The last phrase, which is an allusion to the statement of the French socialist Michel Rocard "France cannot accept all the sorrow of the earth", sounds from the mouth of the narrator with bitter mockery. His real tragedy lies in the fact that, unable to integrate into a new society, he also lost his roots-Africa, with the culture of which, according to others, he should have an indissoluble connection, is completely unfamiliar to him and his friends: "The teacher who loved Drissa asked him to tell her about his native country country <...> Since he didn't really know what to say, he smiled and mumbled two or three fragments from the story about the ancestor, adding something about a lion, a banana bush, or a village with clay huts that he had seen on TV the day before " [N'sondé, 2007, p. 29-30]. Kamel, whose "career as a criminal began almost from the moment of birth" [ibid., p.52], bitterly says that he had never been under the Algerian sun, that his father fought for France in the war. But to the French, he remains a dark, curly-haired Arab. And for others-the son of a traitor [ibid., p. 73].

There is also a short monologue of a policeman in the novel, containing a set of stereotypes about African immigrants, such as "real barbarians", "we would rather stay at home instead of poisoning our lives here", "for a moment I even thought that this was some kind of sorcerer... like voodoo or a black magician", "as mentally retarded as everyone else", "except for sports and music, they are useless in anything" [N'sondé, 2007, p. 45-46].

The hero asks the question of what exactly an African should be, about the search for himself and his place in the world of Europeans, and finds the answer in his inner mono-

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in a speech that simultaneously sounds ironic, bitter, and a call to action for those who still have the opportunity to correct the current situation, to improve their lives: "Normality is a matter of course, and the minority is mired in a debate about how to define their difference. Stop doing nothing, spin like a satellite in the distance, tell us more about yourself, it is necessary that you finally understand that your actions have no color. Did Mozart compose white music? And you are fiercely emphasizing your passion for black art and music. Spread your brains, hurry up, it's time! "[N'sondé, 2007, p. 47-49]

Both novels follow the path of a young man who is promising and has every chance to succeed in life, but who is unable to realize himself in a society full of false stereotypes that deliberately segregate immigrants from a very young age. And their problem is not so much that they live in poor suburbs, where their idols are criminal elements or fundamentalist fanatics. The real tragedy is that they are trapped in a "moral ghetto" where there is no place for any other feelings than bitterness, hatred, and frustration. Partly under the influence of circumstances, partly voluntarily, these people themselves refuse to change their fate, shut themselves off from the world by an artificially created wall between them and an alien society, without making any attempts to find at least some common ground. This mirage of the impossibility of overcoming social exclusion causes them to waste the best years of their lives and, in the end, destroys them. It is necessary to "bridge the huge gap between continents, worlds and epochs. This is the greatness of tomorrow's art" [N'sondé, 2007, p. 133].

A. Mabanckou's novel "The Black Bazaar" [Mabanckou, 2009] takes place in Paris, but there are no native French characters among its characters. The narrator is a young Congolese man who has lived in France for about 15 years, a connoisseur of female beauty, as evidenced by his nickname - " Connoisseur of Asses "(Fessologue) and African dandy (sapeur), who dresses exclusively in suits by Emmanuel Ungaro and Yves Saint Laurent and prides himself on his ability to tie a tie elegantly. Everyone envies his "dust-free work" in the printing house, but no one knows that he works there as a loader. He does not become a writer because of the good life - his wife leaves him for a musician who plays the tom-tom in a band that no one knows in France, "let alone Monaco and Corsica," and takes his daughter with him. From now on, he spends all his time at a typewriter or in Jip's bar on Rue Saint-Denis, where visitors are a kind of compendium of the main features of the African diaspora.

Putting into the mouths of his characters the prevailing stereotypes in society, the author with humor and irony debunks them. Monsieur "Hippocrates", the narrator's neighbor, a fierce opponent of African immigrants and a racist, who reproaches the hero for turning the apartment into an African market, where African punks gather, who do not know what they do there, make fake bills, smoke grass from the lawn, sell new drugs underground, and complain that the French colonizers few whipped Africans [Mabanckou, 2009, p. 34-35], in fact it turns out to be an Antillean, i.e. dark-skinned.

The "Arab from the corner store" who claims to be a champion of a" listening " culture does not allow anyone to get a word in his lengthy passages in defense of militant pan-Africanism and its supporters.

Bosco, a "wandering Chadian" who considers himself the owner of the highest IQ in all of Africa, who knows all the subtleties of French grammar, who calls himself "black Paul Verdun", prefers the walls of a bar to the use of WC for its intended purpose.

A native of Ivory Coast, Roger praises colonialists who "worked like crazy" to leave Africans "everything, including colonial homes.",

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electricity, railways, water pipes, rivers, the Atlantic Ocean, a seaport, a cure for yellow fever, an antiseptic and the city center "[Mabanckou, 2009, p.15], considers the Gauls to be his ancestors, and his main ideological opponent is his former compatriot - "just an Ivorian" Yves.

The narrator's father, who worked as a servant for Europeans, believes that this fact raises him to the top of Western civilization and gives him the right to have an opinion about everything and nothing, and calls his fellow tribesmen "Australopithecines".

The characters of the novel are not only fictional characters, but also real people. So, the embodiment of a true love of literature in the novel is the Haitian writer Louis-Philippe Dalembert.

The narrative style of the novel is deliberately naive, and the stories are often ridiculous and full of self-irony. As in the previous novels of A. Mabanku, a significant place in this book is given to the description of the "sappers" subculture, which raises the cult of designer clothing to the absolute. But if the novel " Tricolor "shows the non-parade, even rather tragic side of the" sapper "movement, then in" Black Bazaar " the author describes its followers with irony and humor.

An example is the scene at the railway station, when the narrator dressed in the latest fashion is accused of a railway strike and non-compliance with the timetable of electric trains, taking him for a railway employee, since the colors of his suit coincide with the colors of the uniform. The writer ridicules the desire of some Africans to whiten their skin, comparing the sale of cosmetics intended for this purpose to the funeral home business: "The funeral home employee will not be left without a job, because people cannot help but die. It is the same story with us Africans: we will not stop bleaching our skin until we are convinced that our curse is only in its color... "[Mabanckou, 2009, p. 77].

There is also the theme of the "Paris mirage", which is diligently supported by" Parisians "among those who stayed at home, stories about spacious apartments with windows on the Champ de Mars, from where" when you brush your teeth or shave, you can see the Eiffel Tower " [Mabanckou, 2009, p.84]. The topic of ethnic and national stereotypes is also raised ("I don't care about your race! You are not at home, in the lower reaches of the Congo River") [Mabanckou, 2009, p. 79], "with Senegalese, everything is simple, you can not speculate, they all have the surname Diop, the main thing is just to remember the name" [ibid., p. 106], "do not confuse the two Congo, otherwise I'll be angry" [ibid., p. 217].

As the story progresses, we learn more and more about the narrator's biography, about his difficult journey to Paris. Having taken a job as a longshoreman in the port of Luanda, at the cost of hard work, he collected the necessary amount for illegal transportation to Europe. He gets to France through Portugal and Belgium, having bought an identity card of a deceased compatriot from enterprising businessmen, under whose name he still lives (which is why he can't give either his name or address). The narrator says with sadness: "The day I give up my skates, my younger brother, who lives in the Congo, will quickly sell my documents to the Angolans, and they, in turn, will resell them to another idiot who wants to go to Europe" [Mabanckou, 2009, p. 181]. However, this work does not have a tragic ending - the hero of the novel finds his love in the person of a white artist Sarah, who managed to "reconcile him with his demons", and harmony finally reigns in his life.

Thus, the African immigrant characters in the novels of French-African writers of the XX-XXI centuries can be divided into several groups.

First, they are unskilled, uneducated Africans who immigrate to France illegally and face many problems there. Without a permanent income or place of residence, they fall into the hands of the police and are subjected to forced deportation: "To you, illegal immigrants without education

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and of course, you only have the prospect of working hard for a pittance, and this is despite the fact that you are lucky and you will not get caught by the police, who will immediately put you on a plane " [Diome, 2003, p. 203]. Such are Massala-Massala from the novel "Tricolor" by A. Mabanku, Moussa from the novel "Belly of the Atlantic" by F. Diom.

Even in the case of legal immigration and obtaining French citizenship, the characters of novels with low educational qualifications can not assimilate new cultural attitudes, integrate into a new society and find a decent job (the parents of the main character from the novel "Holiday Square" by S. Chak).

At the same time, women demonstrate much higher adaptive abilities, are able to earn a living for themselves and their family in one way or another, and take a place in society (the heroines of the novels "Lost Honor" and "Mom has a Lover" by K. Beyala).

Secondly, they are students and young scientists who came to France to study (Zara from S. Bessora's novel "53 cm" (Bessora, 2001), Sali from F. Bessora's novel "53 cm" (Bessora, 2001)). Diom "Belly of the Atlantic").

Third , African Parvenus, enterprising Africans who have managed to succeed in the West, often through unfair means or at the expense of exploiting their own former compatriots (The prefect from the novel by A. Mabanku "Tricolor", El Hadji Gan Yaltige from the novel by F. Mabanku). Diom "Belly of the Atlantic").

The third group is closely related to the fourth, which includes successful journalists, writers, artists, and show business representatives who break off ties with representatives of the diaspora for the sake of their success (for example, Philippe from Camara's novel "Discopolis" [Camara, 2000].

The formation of personal identity among African immigrants also takes place in different ways. Some characters of the novels are locked in their "African shell" and, due to their age or intellectual abilities, are unable to find themselves and their place in the new society, while others are aware of their isolation from their historical homeland, but do not become part of the European society. In part, this is their own choice, which leads to tragic consequences - following the path of least resistance, the characters do not seek to escape from the greyness of the ghetto in which they found themselves by the will of fate, but live out their lives in the company of the same people as they are. Still others disown their African roots, considering themselves exclusively French. But there are also those who manage to live in harmony with their hybrid identity. "I am a representative of the Bamana people of Neuilly, "says Zara from S. Bessora's novel"53 cm".

In the XX-XXI centuries, the novels of writers of African descent who write in French come to the fore not the hero, but the anti-hero-the declassed element, the marginal, the criminal, the alcoholic, the illegal immigrant. The language of the works of the new era is also changing: writers are no longer guided by the general French norm, they are moving away from the academism of their predecessors in the 1960s and 1970s, and they are not afraid to "Africanize" their texts [Naidenova, 2011]. This is partly due to the current trends and socio-political realities, but it is also largely due to the desire to get rid of "literary timidity" and declare its independent existence to the world - in the words of the Congolese writer Chikaya U Tam'si, to finally "colonize" the French language [Lopes, 2003, p.69]. Additionally, this is facilitated by the sense of historical injustice that has befallen the Negroid peoples who have experienced the slave trade and colonialism, the racial factor and the preservation of Africa's peripheral position in modern world economic and cultural processes, which creates an increased need for representatives of the creative intelligentsia to assert themselves and manifest their original essence [Katagoshchina, 1994].

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In connection with this need, the role of the writer comes to the fore. "Why am I writing?" - asks the Congolese writer A. Lopez. And gives a bright original answer: "I write because I am an African; a man who is several million years old, but whose memory and imagination are held together by a thin and fragile thread of vague oral tradition; a man whose library is less than a century old. I write to bring to the world's treasury creatures, landscapes, seasons, colors, smells, tastes and rhythms that are not in it; to tell a world that has four seasons, a world that has a dry season and a rainy season; to tell the sky of the Big Dipper about the sky of the Southern Cross" [Lopes, 2003, p. 111].

list of literature

Katagoshchina I. T. The intellectual in the African society // Bewitched reality (the world of African mentality), Moscow: Vostochnaya literatura, 1994.
Naidenova N. S. Afriquc-sur-Scinc: a new direction in African literature in French. Vestnik RUDN. Linguistics series. 2011. № 3.

Albert Ch. L'immigration dans le roman francophone contemporain. P.: Karthala, 2005.

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