Le Queer Imperial

Reviews / Votes

"Throughout, Everett is [...] careful to emphasize that homoerotic desire can offer continuity with aspects of colonial discourse rather than suggest a liberation from colonial dynamics. [Her] exploration of homophobia in her corpus-as well as in the theoretical writings of thinkers such as Frantz Fanon-is particularly sophisticated and will be of interest to researchers interested in the enduring power of traditions that shape how African male sexuality is represented and understood."

- Aedi'ni Ni'Loingsigh, University of Stirling UK, in French Studies: A Quarterly Review Vol. 74.2 2020 pp. 332-333



"Julin Everett's Le Queer Imperial is an insightful and educational read for any scholar interested in Francophone literature and culture of black Africa, both colonial and postcolonial. Everett's work is critical for literary scholars of black Africa since, as she highlights so well in her introduction, literary analysis of colonial and postcolonial African literature has not been done in this fashion. Even more impactful is her choice of corpus, composed of white European and black African authors, which underlines a trajectory for how readers can better understand the evolution (if we choose to use the term) of homoerotic desire and depiction in colonial and postcolonial Francophone Africana literature. Everett turns the tacit of homoerotic desire in black Africa into explicit knowledge for the readers of her work."

- Daniel Maroun, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign USA, in H-France Review Vol. 19 (July 2019), No. 143



"Le Queer Imperial more than succeeds in its aim to provide 'a new approach to reading male homoerotic desire and domination in Francophone colonial and postcolonial texts' (6). By significantly advancing the fields of postcolonial studies and gender and sexuality studies to the often-neglected study of Black Africa, Everett's kaleidoscopic analysis of homoeroticism paves the way for future transnational considerations."


- Ryan Joyce, Tulane University USA, in sx salon Vol. 37 2021



"Resistant a toute grille d'interpretation reductrice, la puissance theorique de cette etude vient chambouler les champs de lecture habituels, en puisant a la fois dans une vaste bibliotheque theorique allant de l'anthropologie aux plus recents travaux portant sur le queer postcolonial, sur les marginalites, mais aussi et surtout sur les masculinites (postcoloniales). Chaque chapitre offre des analyses pointues de passages souvent au bord de la violence (post)coloniale la plus brutale. L'autrice deconstruit brillamment les epistemologies hetero-sexistes qui se sont construites a travers le delire predateur du projet colonial, mais laisse affleurer toutes les contradictions du pouvoir masculin jusque dans son envers et ses travers, ses depassements outre-genre vers une sexualite queer qui ne peut dire son nom ou s'exprimer librement sous les ideologies regnantes."

- Hugues Azerad, Magdalene College, University of Cambridge, in Dalhousie French Studies, 2021.