L’esthétique décoloniale de la femme noire... 'sorcière' : relations transtextuelles entre le roman fantasy La mer chantera ton nom et le blog Mrs. Roots de Laura Nsafou

As part of the CaNoFF conference (May 19–20, 2026, University of Bremen), Merveilles Mouloungui presented a paper titled “L’esthétique décoloniale de la femme noire… sorcière » : relations transtextuelles entre le roman fantasy La mer chantera ton nom et le blog Mrs. Roots de Laura Nsafou”. The aim was to analyze the relationships between these two forms of expression (the novel and the blog), based on the figure of the ‘Black witch,’ which is addressed in both works. It follows that the concept of the epitext developed by Gérard Genette in Palimpseste (1982) and, in greater detail, in Seuils (1987), fails to account for the relationships—both intertextual and intermedial—that link the two works. Instead of an “epitextual” approach, which requires a hypotexis—that is, an original text upon which other texts depend—this complex relationship, which is more akin to a transmedia adaptation, should rather be analyzed through a horizontal reading. Indeed, the two works engage in a dialogue, complementing one another through different approaches (fictional and critical), in order to articulate a decolonial aesthetic of the Black witch.