Zoly Rakotoniera

Biography

Zoly Rakotoniera is a multifaceted academic with a distinguished career in Madagascar. Currently, she serves as the Director of the National Center for the Teaching of English and as a full-time lecturer in the Department of Anglophone Studies within the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of Antananarivo. Dr. Rakotoniera earned her PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Antananarivo in 2009, supported by a PhD grant from the French government (2004-2006). In 2025 she completed her Professorship at the University of Sorbonne Paris Nord.

She has received a few prestigious research grants such as the Erasmus Mundus mobility grant as a visiting researcher at the University of Gröningen, The Netherlands, in 2014 and the African Studies cluster of excellence research grant of Bayreuth University, Germany in 2020. Her research centers on cultural circulation and configuration, leading to numerous publications in reputable international journals and book chapters with publishers like Lexington and L'Harmattan. Her work explores the representation of family, gender relations, and social issues in Anglophone and Malagasy literature, particularly novels and short stories. She also analyzes contemporary Malagasy and American films.

Proficient in English, French, and Malagasy, Dr. Rakotoniera is actively involved in several national and international research groups, including the Afro-Asian research group (University of Witwatersrand, South Africa), the LAGI (Literature, Arts, Gender and Interculturality) research group (University of Antananarivo), and the "Femmes et féminismes en dialogue" research group (University of Sherbrook, Canada). Furthermore, she serves as the editor-in-chief of Randrana, an international, open-access journal of Anglophone Studies. 

Project Information

Project Title: From insular to transnational: the entanglement of Malagasy Literature in World Literature 

Mentored by Dr. Brendon Nicholls, this research aims to build up understanding of the entanglement of Malagasy literature in world literature by interrogating more seriously the connections and disconnections between Malagasy and the Francophone literary worlds as seen in the cases of Jean-Luc Raharimanana and Johary Ravaloson. It will look at three main points: the aspects, the factors and the impacts of such entanglement. The popular reception, the role of critical analysis, as well as the transnational circulation of the two writers’ work will be used as lenses to see the relationship between the two literary systems. My study will analyse reviews, press opinion pieces (online or in print) and extant research on the transnational circulation of Raharimanana and Ravaloson. Focused attention will be paid to the role of digital globalization in the circulation of their work. My analysis will consider how the authors have contributed, respectively, to the Francophone literary canon. It also assesses the consequences of the diversification of publishing structures, dissemination, and audiences. The dynamics of international recognition, canon formation and persisting inequalities in the global literary system will be examined as well. Finally, the study will reflect upon translation and the use of French language in a postcolonial context. The envisioned output of this research project is the publication of a journal article. As one of the objectives of the project is to enhance the visibility of Malagasy literature, my choice will go to well-ranked international academic journals such as Leeds African Studies Bulletin which subscribe to robust dissemination strategies.