L’ABSURDE DANS LES COQS CUBAINS CHANTENT A MINUIT DE TIERNO MONENEMBO

Abstract

In Philosophy and literature, absurd is seen as “a discrepancy between man’s expectation and his real experience in the world” (https://fr.m.wikipedia.org>wiki>Absurde). African literature of postindependence era, as stressed by Onyemelukwe, is full of absurdities (Heroism and Antiheroism 94). Tierno Monénembo’s Cuban cocks crow at midnight is not an exception. The objective of the present study is to bring to focus the phenomenon of absurd in this migritude novel. Three literary approaches: philosophical, thematic and psychoanalytical are used. It is established that absurd appears in several contexts notably: meaning of life, origin, destiny, misery, solitude, cry, beauty and tragedy. From these findings, we are able to conclude that this migritude writer, Tierno Monénembo tasks himself with reflecting in several ways on the nonsense of life and that Cuban cocks crow at midnight ranks among works of absurd.