Abstract:
When a group of African intellectuals undertake a collective journey to Rwanda four years after the genocide against the Tutsis, Tierno Monénembo writes his narrative, L'aîné des orphelins, from the point of view of Faustin, a young boy. Faustin is indeed the "oldest orphan" on various levels and it is the polysemous character of the notion of being at once the oldest and an orphan that I explore. The article analyses Monénembo's portrayal of this ambiguous position in which his protagonist finds himself. It furthermore considers the child narrator as a recurring figure in Monénembo's work and looks at how the theme of exile, which is common to his writing, takes shape in this particular novel.
