Five Propositions on Self-Narratives, *Francophonie and Minorities

Abstract

This introduction presents the LSMLL volume that follows (volume entitled “Self-Narratives and Society”), and discusses five propositions: I. Self-narratives may be analyzed as rediscoveries of what the self is not, i.e. society in particular; II. Beyond questionable distinctions between autobiography, autofiction and testimonies, selfnarratives may be defined interculturally (with help from the Englishspeaking world) as (predominantly reflexive) forms of life narratives and examples of life-writing; III. Autobiography and autofiction can’t file for divorce; IV. We should joyfully call for the end of [La] *Francophonie, substitute what could be abbreviated as LEF (littérature d’expression française) to the unfortunate expression littérature *francophone, and/or play on semantic neutrality and signal the *Francophone imposture with a (typographical) countersign: *francophone, *Francophonie; V. The “culturality” inherent to self-narratives opens itself up to the question of minorities.