The Voice of the Marginal in Les Honneurs perdus by Calixthe Beyala:Subalternity, Resistance, and the Rewriting of African Femininity

Abstract

The article investigates how Les Honneurs perdus (1996) constructs and articulates marginal voices through its narrative strategies. Drawing on postcolonial theory and feminist criticism—particularly the subalternity framework of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Homi K. Bhabha—the study demonstrates that Beyala’s protagonist, Saïda, embodies a multiply displaced subject whose trajectory exposes both patriarchal and neocolonial systems while simultaneously asserting forms of personal agency. Through close textual analysis of
language, spatial configurations, and narrative techniques, the article shows how Beyala transforms socially silenced women into active speaking subjects who produce counter-narratives. This results in an aesthetics of marginality that challenges dominant epistemologies and reclaims agency for those subjected to intersecting forms of oppression. Engaging recent scholarship, including Claire Ducournau’s institutional critique of Francophone canon formation, Odile Cazenave and Patricia Célérier’s reappraisal of African women’s writing, and Dominic Thomas’s analysis of migrant femininity, the article situates the novel at the intersection of postcolonial feminist theory and contemporary world-literary debates.