Monnew

by Ahmadou Kourouma

Ahmadou Kourouma's long-awaited novel - hailed by critics as "a major event in the history of French-language African literature" and "a masterpiece of literary creation" - tells the story of Djigui Keita, king of fictional Soba. Relying on ancestral magic, faith in Allah, and baked-mud fortifications, Djigui finds himself powerless in the face of oncoming French colonial troops and falls into the fateful politics of conciliation, compromise, and betrayal that still pervades postcolonial Africa.
Tyrannical chief and authentic victim of historical forces, opportunist and pious humanitarian, Djigui Keita, the "AgeOldMan" of his people, is brutally awakened from the tranquillity of traditional certitudes and dragged into a colonial tragedy "made in Europe." Enduring the monnew - the insults, outrages, trials, contempts, and humiliations - of colonialism, Djigui acquires the dimensions of a tragic hero. Ultimately, deep meditation, inspired by the infinite sufferings of his subjects during the more than 125 years of his reign, reveals to Djigui the true nature of people and their acts.
A novel as rich in natural resources as the African continent, Monnew shines with the gold of poetic comedy and plunges into the quagmire of the African tragedy.
Kourouma writes with the accent of his native Malinke language and culture, conveying and analyzing the intricate mechanisms and linguistic complications of postcolonial Africa. In a tender, virile, rigorously intelligent voice, Kourouma uses his prodigious powers of poetry, humor, and stylistic invention to hasten the end of "the seasons of bitterness," the centuries of African sacrifice.

Genres: Africa, Fiction, France

254 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Ahmadou Kourouma, (November 24, 1927 – December 11, 2003) was an Ivorian novelist.
The eldest son of a distinguished Malinké family, Ahmadou Kourouma was born in 1927 in Côte d'Ivoire. Raised by his uncle, he initially pursued studies in Bamako, Mali. From 1950 to 1954, when his country was still under French colonial control, he participated in French military campaigns in Indochina, after which he journeyed to France to study mathematics in Lyon.
Kourouma returned to his native Côte d'Ivoire after it won its independence in 1960, yet he quickly found himself questioning the government of Félix Houphouët-Boigny. After brief imprisonment, Kourouma spent several years in exile, first in Algeria (1964-1969), then in Cameroon (1974-1984) and Togo (1984-1994), before finally returning to live in Côte d'Ivoire.
Determined to speak out against the betrayal of legitimate African aspirations at the dawn of independence, Kourouma was drawn into an experiment in fiction, his first novel, Les soleils des indépendances (The Suns of Independence, 1970). Les soleils des indépendances contains a critical treatment of post-colonial governments in Africa. Twenty years later, his second book Monnè, outrages et défis, a history of a century of colonialism, was published. In 1998, he published En attendant le vote des bêtes sauvages, (translated as Waiting for the Wild Beasts to Vote), a satire of post colonial Africa in the style of Voltaire in which a griot recounts the story of a tribal hunter's transformation into a dictator, inspired by president Gnassingbé Eyadéma of Togo. In 2000, he published Allah n'est pas obligé (translated as Allah is Not Obliged), a tale of an orphan who becomes a child soldier when traveling to visit his aunt in Liberia.
At the outbreak of civil war in Côte d'Ivoire in 2002, Kourouma stood against the war as well as against the concept of Ivorian nationalism, calling it "an absurdity which has led us to chaos." President Laurent Gbagbo accused him of supporting rebel groups from the north of the country.
In France, each of Ahmadou Kourouma's novels has been greeted with great acclaim, sold exceptionally well, and been showered with prizes including Prix Renaudot in year 2000 and The Prix Goncourt des Lycéens for Allah n'est pas obligé . In the English-speaking world, Kourouma has yet to make much of an impression: despite some positive reviews, his work remains largely unknown outside college classes in African fiction.
At the time of his death, he was working on a sequel to Allah n'est pas obligé, entitled Quand on refuse on dit non (translated roughly as When One Disagrees, One Says No), in which the protagonist of the first novel, a child soldier, is demobilized and returns to his home in Côte d'Ivoire, in which a new regional conflict has arisen.

Reviews

[Angie Reisetter · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a difficult book to read, but it's one of those things that is probably good for me. It's told as an allegorical story, a mighty myth to be learned. It centers on a fictional king who rules Soba, a fictional land that resembles the Ivory Coast (really resembles it). When the conquering French come, Soba surrenders without a fight due to a trickster translator, and then the book covers the evils of colonialism. The forced labor (but no slavery here!), the taxes and starvation, the imposed desire for modernization, the infighting spurred on by the French.

Kourouma often insults the people of Soba and black Africans in general, and I believe this is to be taken as ironic. There is such bitterness, though, that it's one of those things that make me wonder if some part of him believes some of it. And the ubiquitous use of what I can only call the n-word made the reading all the more difficult and uncomfortable. I don't think Kourouma would apologize for this -- I think he wants us to be uncomfortable reading it. But there are additional difficulties -- the narration keeps switching between 3rd person and 1st person, but different 1st persons, so it's difficult to tell who's speaking. And certainly the kind of Soba is no angel -- it is not a happy, productive, united kingdom before the French come, so there is that element of (realistic) complication as well.

So yes, I believe this book was good for me in an intellectual way. It gave me a lot to think about. But it was a rough read.

[Africa BookChallenge]

The latest entry for The Africa Book Challenge, Monnew by Ahmadou Kourouma, has arrived!

Click on the URL in the profile to learn more about this fascinating critique of the role of language in colonialism in West Africa.

[aly ☆.。.:・°☆.。.:・°]

dnf @ 45%

[kripsoo · Rating 5 out of 5]

استخدم الراوي أجواءالطقوس لإبراز أبشع صور العذاب التي تدمر حياه إنسان غرب أفريقيا باسم السياسة والدين والشعوذة و هي الأنهر التي تتغذى بها الصراعات وتتدفق منها بحور الدماء هناك وايضا صاغ المؤلف من خلال ما أسماها مواخير غرب أفريقيا السياسية مشهدا بائسا لحياة تعيسة تتحكم فيهادمى الاستعمار تصنع السياسات القذرة

[Guillaume Masse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sujet intéressant, mais l'écriture est trop lourde pour moi.