The Centre for African Literary Studies (CALS) hosted two visitors, Professor Philip Whyte and Dr Guillaume Cingal, from the University of Tours on the 15 February 2013. Professor Bernard DeMeyer, French Studies and a member of the CALS Advisory Board, was responsible for bringing the visitors to CALS. The visiting academics also addressed staff and students from English at CALS on 13 February 2013 in a seminar organised by Professor Mbongeni Malaba and Dr Michael Wessels.

The purpose of the visit to UKZN was to discuss the partnership between the two institutions (staff and student exchange, joint research, etc.) and hence the visitors met the French discipline (Pietermaritzburg (PMB Campus), the English discipline (PMB and Howard College), International Relations and the Dean and Head of School of Arts, Professor N. Zulu. They also held a meeting with two University of Tours exchange students who are at UKZN for this semester. Informal discussion at the seminar included ideas on the sort of student, staff and research exchanges that could be arranged in future between UKZN and the University of Tours with regard to the field of English literary studies.

 Professor Whyte coordinates the MA programme at the University of Tours and his field of specialisation is postcolonial theory and literature in West Africa. He has published a book on Ayi Kwei Armah and about 20 articles on the African writers, Ben Okri (Nigéria), Kojo Laing (Ghana), Syl Cheney Coker (Sierra Leone), Syl Bendele-Thomas (Nigéria), Abdulrazak Gurnah (Zanzibar), and Kofi Awoonor (Ghana).  Dr Cingal is the coordinator of 3rd year English studies and PGCE (English). His fields of specialisation are postcolonial literatures, semiotics and translation studies

In his presentation Professor Whyte gave an overview of the history of West African writing in English. Dr Cingal analysed two South African poems, including Jeremy Cronin’s poem, ‘Who’. He emphasised the need to provide the historical and social contexts to the poems when teaching them to French students.

At CALS the French visitors were very excited by the collection of books, especially the Onitsha market literature, and the newly archived unpublished materials. They found several items that they had searched for previously but never been able to locate.

“Each shelf cries out for a conference about its holdings!” said Dr Cingal. Future research exchanges will certainly provide the opportunity to take this challenge further.