A SHORT HISTORY
  January 1999, on a flight to Gabon, Antoine Gallimard and Jean-Noël Schifano come up with the idea of gathering under the one imprint all works that share the same origin, i.e. black Africa, without however being constrained by this. Seen from above, it is obvious that the geography and energy in African literature call for general publishers to look at it more closely and methodically than they had previously. “We wondered whether there was a great African river that deposited into the Seine the powerful current of African writings”. If not the river itself, the NRF could at least be one of its major tributaries, in a sense, extending its promotion of great authors of Creole culture (Chamoiseau, Confiant, Glissant...). Jean-NoÎl Schifano was to be the man for the job. A Franco-Sicilian novelist and critic (he translates Umberto Eco), he would take advantage of his recent return to Paris to embark on this new publishing venture with Gallimard.
  On arrival at Libreville, then, Antoine Gallimard announced the setting up of the new NRF imprint - in the same way in the past, there had been imprints devoted to emerging Polish and Russian literature, and to great South American texts. A year later, in January 2000, the verbal contract was honorured. The first five books were published, including a reprint of one of the very first African novels, which had been translated in 1953 by Raymond Queneau: L’Ivrogne dans la brousse by Nigerian writer, Amos Tutuola.With seven new titles per year, “Continents noirs” brings together works by writers of varied backgrounds – artistic field, nationality, country of residence, and individual pathway. Lecturers and academics living in France or abroad (Effa, Kandé, Mintsa, -Mongo -Mboussa, Nganang or Waberi...) can be found alongside figures from the cultural and political scene (Ali Diallo, Mambou Aimée Gnali. In addition to aknowledged and talented writers with an already large body of work (Devi, Tchak..., without forgetting their elder, Henri Lopes, of course), the imprint promotes authors still unknown in France and welcomes a number of first novels and stories.
  Most of the authors were born after 1960 - one generation has passed and with it a particular relation between literature and roots: “At first, African writers belonged to a time when the essence of things was given once and for all: Africa, negritude, race, Senegal, Congo, etc. Now, we live with suspicion: we can no longer believe that we can be defined by essences alone. We are no longer only Senegalese, but Senegalese plus something else... "(Waberi). This remark applies to the whole imprint. Is “Continents noirs” about identity? yes, in so far as it relates to what Henri Lopes describes as a threefold identity : original, yet universal and fundamentally unique to each writer.